captioning sponsored by cbs >> pelley: it's 7:00 in the east on the night america elects a president. the polls have just closed in six states, including the first of the battleground states. the results are coming in so let's get started. this is the presidential race map as we have it at this moment. the states in red are the states that cbs news projects will be carried by mitt romney. let's have a look at those quickly. the state of indiana cbs news projects will go to mitt romney and the state of kentucky cbs news projects will go to governor romney. and so far tonight we have projected president obama the winner of the state of vermont. that is all we have at the moment. all the other state state wheree polls have closed we simply don't have enough information yet to make a projection on those states. will barack obama get a second term? or will mitt romney become the

45th president? will the democrats be able to hold on to the senate or will the republicans take control? we're about to find out. it's election night on cbs. changes and i'm going to bring it to this country. >> the stock market has rebounded. our assembly lines are humming again. we are moving forward! >> i want more jobs! my priority is jobs, jobs, jobs! >> i don't want your vote because of what i have done, i want your vote because of what i'm going to do. >> this campaign is growing, the momentum is building. >> in america our destiny is not written for us, it's written by us. >> three more days and we can get to work building our country. >> in two days america's got a choice to make. >> one final push and we'll be there. tomorrow we begin a new tomorrow. >> it's up to you! you've got the power! campaign 2012, bob schieffer, norah o'donnell and john dicker son with analysis. anthony mason reports on exit

polls. byron pitts follows congress. from cbs news election headquarters, here again is scott pelley >> pelley: good evening. it's a state-by-state battle tonight for electoral votes. the magic number, you'll hear it all night, is 270. you'll also be hearing a lot tonight about the battleground states. nine states where the election is so close they could swing either barack obama or mitt romney. those are the nine battleground states. the polls have closed in only one of them, virginia, and the race there we do not have enough information yet to make a projection in the state of virginia. bob schieffer is, this is -- you've been covering presidential elections since 1972. >> not 57 of them! (laughs) >> pelley: quite a few, bob. i wonder. the polling is showing us that the election is very, very

tight. what are you looking for tonight? >> well, the polls are showing this as a tie in the national vote. it all comes down to these nine battleground states the nation is deeply divided, scott the red states are very, very red. the blue states are very, very blue. for example, illinois, california, and new york, the democrats are going to pick up 104 electoral college there and they did nothing there except go there for fund-raisers. that just shows you how sure we have of these states that are so blue and so red. but it's those nine states that we're talking about. that's what it's going to come down to, those nine battleground states and they are all-- with the possible exception of ohio-- all within the margin of error right now. >> pelley: norah, what do you see going into election tonight? >> one of the things i think is interesting is how much of the

country has voted today before election day, the so-called early vote. it's been growing over the years. today we've seen more than 30 million people have turned out at the polls. interestingly enough, scott, the battleground state where this early vote has turned out. look at this. colorado, 77% has already voted. nevada. 72%. north carolina, 63% has already voted. in florida 53%. iowa 44%. and ohio 31%. john dickerson and i were talking about this earlier today. we could have most of the results already by the people that have come out early and that's why the campaigns spent so much time on getting out the vote early, this ground game on these early votes. >> pelley: we'll come back to you early and often. john dickerson is our cbs news political director. john is going to be showing us the various ways that the candidates can get to the 270 electoral votes necessary to twin presidency. john? >> well, first, scott, let's follow up on what bob was saying. we're going to dispatch with 41 of the states, the majority of

the country cbs estimates based on the polling that those states are either going to go to barack obama or to mitt romney. that gives barack obama a start where he's likely to get 237 electoral votes, mitt romney is likely to get 191 electoral votes. so here we are at the beginning of the evening, nothing has been called, it's all possibility. so what is the easiest past for each candidate to get to that 270 number? we'll start with the incumbent, barack obama. because he has 237 electoral votes that he is likely to get, he has more pathways to 270. in fact, his easiest route would be to start with florida then he would need just one of the remaining eight battleground states to get to 270. mitt romney has a tougher path. for mitt romney, if he were to win florida, and he were also to win ohio, north carolina and virginia, the four big prizes of the evening, that would still only get him to 266. then he would have to win one of

the remaining five battleground states to get to that number, 270. >> pelley: john, thank you. essentially the states are given electoral votes as a function of their population. the larger the population of the state, the more electoral votes they have. anthony mason is watching our exit polling today. anthony has been looking at all of the information coming in from the various exit polls. we've been talking to voters, anthony as they left the polls in every state all day long. what are you hearing so far? >> well, first, scott, let me give you a sense of where we'll start here. we're tracking the nine battleground states you've been talking about. they're going start out here in the tossup column, all nine of them. as polls close we'll look to see whether they begin to lean to a particular candidate. let's say, for example, virginia looks like it's leaning to president obama. that would mean president has a slight advantage in that state, but that the state could still lean back. the next step we'll move a state

into the likely column. let's say it looks like for example north carolina is a likely win for governor romney. that would mean the governor had a clear lead in that state but he wasn't over the finish line that. we'll keep track of these numbers as the night goes on to give you a better sense of how our election desk see this is race unfolding and we'll be backing it up with our exit polling data as it comes in, scott. >> pelley: anthony, thanks very much. florida, ohio, and virginia are the biggest of the battleground states with a total of 60 electoral votes. we have cbs news correspondents in all three of them tonight. first we'll go to our man in ohio, dean reynolds. dean? >> reporter: scott, we are noticing something here before the polls actually closed. several board of elections officials in counties across the state are telling us that provisional voting was very heavy today. provisional ballots are those which go to people whose registration doesn't actually match their address or people who requested an absentee

ballot, never filled it out, never sent it back and showed up today to vote. so they're giving a provisional ballots. that's significant of those because there were 200,000 of those in 2008. it didn't matter because barack obama won ohio significantly then. but 200,000 votes in a very close race and votes that don't get counted or validated until november 17, they could be very, very significant in a close race so that's what we're going to be watching as the evening wears on, scott. >> pelley: and ohio could very well be the state tonight that tips the balance for one candidate or the other. dean, thanks very much. nancy cordes is with the obama campaign at obama campaign headquarters in chicago. nancy? >> reporter: scott, speaking of ohio, obama campaign officials continue to insist that it is very unlikely that governor romney can can overcome their big early voting leads in that state. beyond that, they're telling me tonight they still think it's

very likely they will pick up three of those battleground states: iowa, wisconsin, and nevada right off the bat. just with those four battlegrounds they get the 270 electoral votes they need to win the presidency. they tell me they're not seeing a big wave for the g.o.p. this time around. they think that the electorate looks more like 2008 when they were swept into power than 2010 when republicans took control of the house. do they expect to get the same margins they did in 2008? no. but they tell me, scott, they don't need to. >> pelley: thank you, nancy. jan crawford has been covering the romney campaign. she is in boston tonight. jan? >> well, scott, governor romney just landed here about an hour ago after making campaign stops in that key state of ohio and in pennsylvania. he talked to reporters on the way back on the plane and he said he felt good about this campaign. they hadn't left anything in the locker room and that he thinks they're going to win. he said he just finished his victory speech. he's not written a concession speech. now, the mood inside the

campaign tonight, scott, is one of cautious optimism, i'd say. but there is a little bit of nervousness and here's why: campaign sources that i'm talking with tonight say they are encouraged by the high numbers of republican turnout they're seeing in these swing states like ohio, florida, virginia. they believe that will outperform john mccain in 2008. that's the key to this election. they really had to run up the score in those areas. but here's where the nervousness comes in. they're also seeing some of the president's turnout in some of those democratic areas like in northeastern ohio near cleveland, northern virginia outside of washington, d.c. and even in florida outside of tampa, they're seeing big turnout numbers there, too. they don't think he can get his 2008 turnout numbers but, scott, as you know tonight, it's going to be all about turnout. >> pelley: yes, it will, jan, thank you very much. the candidate who gets his voters to the polls is likely to win today. norah, turnout is everything and the electorate's been changing since 2008. >> it has. that's one of the things i'm going to be looking at tonight.

not only how big is the turnout but the size of the electorate. the different democrat graphic groups. we saw as i pointed out during our evening news that 26% of the electorate in 2008 was a minority electorate. does that grow? does it stay the same or shrink? that will be part of it. the white vote which was about 73% of the vote where will that be tonight? it will speak to not only the changing nature of the country's electorate but also give us clues about which candidate is doing better. >> pelley: bob, the national polls over the last few days, dead heat. dead even for both candidates. it's remarkable how evenly split the country is. >> well, it really is. but i think we're going to have a big turnout. you heard jan talking about big republican turnout. i think you're going to see a big democratic turnout. people are interested. we saw that in the debates where you had 60 million people watching each of the debates. there were good ratings for the primary debates when they were going on.

people are really, really interested. but, again, as you say, they are split right down the middle. and everything we've seen from this early wave of exit polling just reinforces that. >> pelley: one of the keys tonight is the state of virginia. the polls have closed in virginia but we do not have enough information to make a projection yet. turnout in virginia has been very high, both candidates have been working very hard in virginia. andny mason has been looking at the exit polling information and what the voters to v told us as they left the polls today in that state. anthony? >> scott, four years ago president obama won the state of virginia but that state has a very red voting history, in fact. in fact, it had gone republican all the way back to 1964 before the president carried it. one reason he did win it four years ago was independent voters. he won independents narrowly but he won them 49% to 48%. but look what's happening this time around in virginia among independents. governor romney has a clear advantage here. 53% to 41%.

we asked those independents how they felt about the obama administration? 50% said they were satisfied. but nearly as many said they were dissatisfied or angry. so who would do a better job on the economy we asked and there governor romney had an overwhelming advantage, scott, 68% to 28%. virginia is still in the tossup category, scott. >> pelley: the unemployment rate in virginia is 5.9%, it would be the envy of most states in the union. wyatt andrews is in virginia. he's been observing the turnout there. wyatt, what have you seen? >> scott, by far the most important trend we saw in virginia today was extremely high voter turnout. state officials say it will probably be a record. everywhere we looked today very long lines. in northern virginia, some voters waited four hours to vote, but they still waited. the obama campaign has long argued high voter turnout here would favor the president because most of the state's

160,000 new registered voters tend to be latinos, women, and african american voters inclined to vote for the president. the romney campaign to that says nonsense, that the high turnout reflects the unprecedented republican ground game. the romney campaign also says it is vastly outperforming the john mccain vote from 2008 we're also hearing from the campaigns tonight, scott. the obama camp thrilled with the turnout in northern virginia, norfolk and richmond. the romney campaign very pleased with the turnout in rural areas of the state and western areas of the state. scott? >> reporter: virginia critical to both candidates but really central to the planning of the romney campaign. wyatt, thank you so very much. america is not just choosing a president tonight, of course, control of the congress is also at stake and our chief national correspondent byron pitts is following the house and the senate races for us tonight. byron? >> scott, you're right. both parties have plenty at stake in both the senate and the

house. first the senate, there are currently 53 democrats and 47 republicans. one-third of the u.s. senate is up for election tonight. that's 33 seats. 23 democratic and ten republican. in order for the republicans to take control of the senate, they would need to win four seats. that bat logical take place in about a dozen states from places like connecticut and massachusetts out east to nevada and arizona out west. cbs news considers six of these states true tossups. that's massachusetts, connecticut, virginia, wisconsin, north dakota, and montana. republicans have what they're calling their big four. that's montana, north dakota, nebraska and wisconsin. republicans tell us in order for them to win the senate they have to win the majority of the big four. the polls have closed. we're going to take a closer look in virginia where the polls have closed at the senate race there. there's a contest between two former popular governors. you have republican george allen, the former u.s. senator from that state and democrat tim kaine, the former head of the

democratic national committee. this is a very tight race. it's also the most expensive senate race this year. now let's look at the house of representatives. as we know, every two years all 435 seats in the house come up for election. there are currently 242 republicans, 193 democrats. in order for a democrat -- democrats to take control of the house, they would have to win 25 seats. but, scott, we've talked to a number of democrats privately who say it's going to be all but impossible for them to get beyond single digits. we will see. >> pelley: byron thank you very much. let's have a look at where things stand at this early moment on election night. this is the presidential race map. the national map. the states that you see in red are the states where cbs news projects mitt romney will be victorious. the state that you see in blue there, the state of vermont, is where we project that president obama has picked up his first state. the states in white are places where the polls have closed but we simply do not have enough

information yet in order to make a projection and the states that are in gray are all the places across the country where voters are still at the polls. cbs news coverage of election night will continue in just a moment.

with our cbs news election night coverage. let's show you where things stand at the moment. this is the nationwide presidential race map as we have it. polls have closed in several states. the states you see in red are those we project will be picked up by mitt romney. the state that you see in blue, vermont, we project will be the president's first victory tonight. the states in white are places where the polls have closed but

we simply do not have enough information to make a projection. the states in gray are those places where americans are still voting. the overriding theme of this presidential campaign has been the state of the economy. anthony mason has more about how that's been reflected in our exit polls today. anthony? >> scott, it was overwhelmingly the number one issue among voters we talked toen n our exit poll. although 38% told us they see the economy as getting better. that left 32% saying it's getting worse, 28% saying it's staying the same. the getting better number has been inching up. but as far as personal finances, most people say they're doing worse or about the same as they were four years ago. three quarters told us that. so who do they blame? well, many don't actually blame president obama. more than half told us that they held former president bush responsible. 40% blamed the president, scott. >> pelley: anthony, thank you very much.

norah, no president has been reelected-- not since f.d.r.-- with an unemployment rate this high, 7.9%. >> pelley: and several other incumbents that tried to be reelected with even lower unemployment failed to get reelected. george w. bush, it was 7.7.4%, gerald ford 7.5 and carter 7.8. so obama faces a difficult picture. florida's higher than the national average. north carolina higher than the national average. what does he do to combat that? something i've been talking about tonight. he's trying to build this coalition of african american, hispanic, young voters, college educated whites. can he turn those people out to the polls? >> scott, this was going to be the tail wind for governor romney. he had the economy that was bad, he was going to grab it, his people -- i remember early on his people telling me every hour we're not talking about the economy and unemployment is an hour lost. one of the interesting things

we're going to see this evening is did that prove to be the right strategy or did they spend so much time concentrating on the economy in the early months that they let the obama campaign define them a lot of people say they should have been in there explaining to people who mitt romney was while they were talking about the economy the obama campaign was talking about mitt romney being a rich guy who just wanted to keep taxes low for his friends out at the country club. we'll see as the evening wears on whether he actually put too much attention on the economy in those early months. >> pelley: bob, thank you. nancy cordes is covering the obama campaign. she's in chicago tonight. nancy, how do they see the economy playing for them? >> this is an exceedingly tricky issue for the president, scott. he has to make the case to voters that the economy has improved over the past four years without appearing to be insensitive to the fact that millions of americans are still looking for work or don't have

the same income that they had four years ago. so out on the campaign trail he always has this dual message where he talks about the 5.4 million new private sector jobs that have been created over the past few years, the fact that the unemployment rate has dropped from a peak of 10.2% down to where it is today, 7.9%. and it helps him that consumer confidence has been on the rise in the past few months because you have been when we see that happening you see people feeling better about the president's stewardship of the economy. it also helps him that in several key battleground states like ohio the unemployment rate is lower than the national average, scott. >> pelley: nancy, thank you. in those battleground states, the unemployment rate varies widely. in nevada, it's almost 12%. in the state of iowa it's down to nearly 5%. john dickerson has been tracking this for us. john? >> that's right, scott. in the battleground states and everything we think about tonight there will be national picture but there will be the

picture in the key battleground states and the president has a brighter picture in those battleground states five of them are below unemployment of 7.9%s which are below national average. those are states iowa, as you mentioned, virginia the unemployment rate is 5.9%, new hampshire 5.7%, ohio 7% and wisconsin 7.3%. but what's really fascinating are those states where it is higher than the national average and you mentioned nevada. that that has highest unemployment rate in the country, 11.8%. one of the themes of this evening is going to be the battle between the economy and then demographics. for the president the economy in a state like nevada is quite bad. the state has been hard hit by the housing crisis. but on the other hand, there are almost 30% of the population in nevada is hispanic, a strong group for the president. that will be the question of the contest in nevada and in other states.

>> pelley: john, thank you very much. jan crawford is with the romney campaign in boston tonight. jan, the economy should have been the theme of the romney campaign throughout but from time to time he was knocked off that message. >> that's right, scott. of course he tried to keep a layer is-like focus on the economy, that's what he built his entire campaign around, focusing on his career in business and on turning around the salt lake city olympic games saying he knows how to create jobs and the president doesn't and he says the president was a failure on the economy and that americans deserve better. of course, americans have consistently said throughout the campaign the economy is the most important issue and romney has seen an opening there. sometime he is did get off that, scott. >> pelley: thank you very much, jan. you're watching cbs news coverage of election night 2012.

i'm dana king... and i'm ken bastida... the polls in california oper another couple of hours... a record number of californias registered this year, and at 70-percent are mailing in tr ballots. but right now there lines at some bay area pollg places. cbs-5 reporter juliette gooh is at the alameda county registars' office. juliette. the governor's assessment os make-or-break issue...prop - when we come back.

in california, no issue has drawn more cash -- or debat- than prop 30.,,,,,,,,

more cash -- or debate -- tn prop 30. cbs-5 reporter allen martins in sacramento with more on e governor's final push for hs tax initiative. allen. [sot 1: gov. jerry brown] "i have a sense that people are ready to invest in their fue which is the kids, and california and balanced budt going forward." we'll be back in 25 minutesh more local election coverag. now back to cbs news and sct pelley.

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>> pelley: the polls have just closed in three more states in this presidential election, including the swing state everybody will be watching tonight, the state of ohio. and another swing state, north carolina. no projections in either of those states or in virginia yerchghyet,another big battle g. let's look at the presidential race now as it stands right now. the state that you see in blue, the state of vermont is the president's first win today. mitt romney we project will be the winner in indiana, kentucky and in west virginia. the states that you see in white are states where the polls have now closed but we do not yet have enough information on which to base a projection. as we were saying, mitt romney has just picked up the state of

west virginia. now you may be looking at this and saying wait a minute, that shows us that none of the vote has been counted. how can you say that mitt romney has won west virginia? well all of our cbs news projections tonight will be based on the vote that has been counted and also our exit polling. we have been talking to voters in all of these states all day long as they've left the polling places. and based on that exit poll information, we will project winners in these states and we will do so only when we have complete confidence in that projection. now let's look at those battle ground states that we keep referring to tonight. these are the states that could go either way. these are the states that are going to tip the balance tonight for one candidate or the other. the polls have closed in a few of them but many are still voting. in the state of virginia, we do not have a projection but this is the tabulated vote as we see

it so far. just 2% of the vote has been counted. mitt romney out with a lead there. this is a state that president obama won by 6% in 2008. but again, the mitt romney lead may or may not last because only 2% of the vote has been counted. bob schieffer, the other state that has just closed, state of ohio, critical to mitt romney's hopes for winning the whitehouse. >> absolutely. i mean his people told me last week yes, we could win if we lost ohio, but i think it would be a very tall hill to climb if that happened. the only thing we have said through this campaign season more than it is all coming down to turnout is that we have reminded people no republican has ever won the presidency unless they won ohio. 18 electoral votes up there. if you say that president obama starts tonight or we think he has 237 electoral votes for

sure, he will probably get nevada which is six votes. that brings him to 243 votes. if he picked up ohio, then he would have i think 261 votes. he would need only nine more votes to claim the presidency. ohio is always important, especially the republicans. this year i would say more important than ever. >> pelley: bob, thank you very much. now as i mentioned we have been talking to voters in all of these states as they left the polls today and anthony mason is tracking the exit poll information. anthony, what did the voters in ohio tell us? >> well scott, let's first take a look at our battle ground board here. as you mentioned three battle ground states. the polls have closed. all three of those still right here in the middle of the toss up column. we want to turn our eyes to ohio and 18 electoral votes you've been talking about. take a look at the white working class vote in ohio. it makes up a quarter of the electorate there. four years ago president obama and john mccain just about split this vote.

here's what's happening this time around. governor romney has a better advantage, 50 to 28 48% again vy close. we asked those working class voters who is more in touch with people like you. again tight as a drum 49 to 48 for governor romney. ask them who would do a better job of handling the economy and here governor romney has a big advantage. 53-44%. again scott, these are white working class voters, voters with no college degree who earn under $to,000. thi$-- under $50,000.>> pelleyg ohio where political advertising. the president started his advertising bass last summer and the folks ohio have seen nothing since then. >> car bomg is the right word. people in ohio wanted to turn off their television. it was the most campaign in any state. in fact we can show you the democrat at $92 million out of republican spent over $100

million. i mean think about that, $200 million on one state. that's how important ohio is. and you talked about it, scott, early on too in may, defining mitt romney earlier. bob touched on this too. the obama team campaign manager jim mes messina said let's defie romney early on the campaign. they ran an ad called seal talking about romney being head of bain capital and shutting down the plant has been in operation over a hundred years. devastating early on so when mitt romney showed up at the convention he was the first republican nominee in a long memory with upside down numbers where negative ratings are positive ratings. it may hurt mitt romney. >> the auto bailout which was so hurtful to workers in ohio and that ad campaign might be the two things that do the trick for the president tonight, if the president is to win. >> what is so interesting about

this, there are people in ohio who have seen more of barack obama and mitt romney this year than they have their local congressman. it's almost like the two of them are running for governor out there. >> pelley: john dickerson is following ohio county by county for us tonight, and john i wonder if you can tell us which way the wind is blowing yet? >> well, scott, what we don't know yet is which way those counties are going to fill in. but let's go take a look at the ohio map. what we're going to do is lay out the down day counties in ohe those votes need to come in for the two candidates. there are three things each candidate wants to do. they want to run very well where their voters are. they want to try to hold their opponent margin down in the area where their opponent is strong and they want to win the swing areas. for barack obama the big area is where cleveland is up in the north eastern part of the state. then for governor romney, down here in the southwestern part of the state in butler county --

and claremont county let's where governor romney has to do well. then if you're looking for an interesting county, hamilton county, president bush won that twice. if you want to look at a bell weather county, look lucas cou, that's a county that's picked the president before so we'll be watching that even though it's not a big county to give us some inkling who is going to win the state. >> pelley: thank you john. dean reynolds is our man in ohi and he has some information about the early voting there. dean? >> scott, right behind me here is ohio secretary of state john houston who was just informing everybody what we already know that some 1.8 million people avail themselves of the right to early vote over the last five weeks in ohio. and here's something we all need to understand about the tabulated vote as it comes out in ohio, not the projected

returns but the tabulated votes. the early votes will be counted first. so that means by mutual agreement, people believe that president obama won the early vote, so there will be a spike in president obama's numbers in the immediate release of these votes. the officials here and i think the campaigns agree that the separation between governor romney and the president will probably diminish as the evening goes on, and of course then the question is whether it will diminish enough or whether the early vote has built up enough of a cushion for president obama to carry the state. >> jan crawford has been traveling the length and breadth of this country with mitt romney for many months now. and jan, mitt romney went to ohio some times you could be forgiven for thinking he was running for governor of ohio. >> that's right.

we certainly knew all the area codes down there. he knows the affordance of ohio. look today he and his running mate were there for one last visit. governor romney made 26 visits to the state of ohio during the general election. the campaign is always seen several keys to victory in that state and he hammered them to into different areas of the state as he went there. western ohio are encouraged. they think his message has gone over well. that's a republican area and turnout is huge in those areas. they believe they're going to equal the aforenumbers. they had to run up the score there if they wanted to turn off the state. they also like what they're seeing in southeastern ohio. scott, we spent a lot of time there too in cold country. he had several rallies around coal mines with miners. he stretches his policies. those are democrats where romney thinks he can pick up those votes. we've been to columbus, cleveland. those are the high numbers that the president, scott, is too close to call there tonight my

campaign sources say. >> pelley: jan, thank you. the president of course has been working ohio just as hard. it is key to the president's election tonight if he is to be re-elected tonight. if he can win ohio, he can effectively block the romney campaign. and nancy cordes is covering the uniquobama campaign. she's in chicago tonight. nancy you spent quite a bit of time in ohio as well. >> i sure did, scott. the other day was a perfect example. we're five days out from election day. the president spentsdz the you're day barn storming ohio. heads home to the whitehouse to sleep and then comes right back out to ohio in the morning. to give you a sense of just sowch he naifers this one state, he held 101 campaign rallies across the country he this election season. 26 of them, more than a quarter were in one state, ohio. and he wasn't just in the big cities, he went to the suburbs, he went to small towns. and the main reason that the ohio campaign focused so heavily on this state and always felt that their chances were better in ohio than in, say, battle

ground states like virginia or florida was because of the auto industry. as you mentioned before, one in eight jobs in this state are connected to the auto industry. the auto bailout very popular. the president never missed a chance on the campaign trail in ohio to talk about how he had gotten the auto industry back on track and how governor romney opposed that bailout. >> pelley: thank you very much. we have breaking news of this moment. cbs news projects that mitt romney will carry the state of south carolina. no great surprise. mccain won that state by 9% in 2008, but we can now project that mitt romney will carry the state of south carolina. bob and nora, state of ohio again. it's so critical tonight. it might be said that if the president wins re-election tonight, he may have won it in 2009 when he signed that auto bailout for ohio. >> that very well might be the

case. i still don't understand why governor romney went to cleveland today. this is the most heavily democratic part of the country and one of the most heavily democratic counties. maybe he was just trying to tie up traffic or something to keep democrats from going to vote there. i don't understand why that would be the place he would go on the last day. >> cleaved of course is a heavily democratic area as bob pointed out. that northern part of the state all the way from ac akron to too did benefit from the auto bailout. it cost taxpayers $80 billion. part has been remade but there's a $25 billion loss for all the taxpayers but maybe the best 25 billion barack obama paid. it's all tied to the auto strivment aindustry. six out of ten voters said they liked the auto bailout in that state. it helped them economically. that's really a part of what we're watching, how that state

shakes out. some people seemed to like the auto bailout obama put in place. >> unemployment rate in ohio is 2% lower than the rest of the country. so certainly feeling better there in ohio. let's look at the presidential race now as it has changed over the last moment or two. the presidential race out there, we now have added south carolina to the red states. those states cbs news projects will be carry by in the mitt. presidenmitt -- romney. mitt romney with 33 electoral votes on the way to 270. president obama with 3 electoral votes but of course a lot of big states have yet to weigh in. let's also have a look at the pop already vot -- popular votes it's being counted now. we'll show you this all evening lang from time to time. these are the actual votes across the country. mr. romney ahead at this early stage with over 2 million votes and the president just under 2

million votes. but of course we'll remind you the popular vote though interesting will not mean a thing tonight. it is all about the electoral vote and the effort to get to 270. cbs news coverage of america's 57th presidential election will continue in a moment. >> pelley: welcome back to

election night on cbs. let us catch you up right now very latest information we have on the presidential race. this is the national race map as you can see the states in red are the states that cbs news projects for governor romney. the state in blue vermont, the state that we are projecting at this point for president obama. the states in white are those states where the polls have closed but we just don't have enough information yet in order to make a projection. and the rest of the states in gray are those states where americans are still voting. let's have a look at the critical swing state of virginia. again, not nearly enough information to make a projection but this is the tabulated vote. 6% of the vote in right now, and

you can see mitt romney has stepped out to a sizeable lead here but it's very early yet, just 6% of the vote has been counted in virginia. we have with us now the republican governor of virginia, bob mcdonald. governor, good of you to be with us tonight. thank you very very much. >> hi, scott. >> pelley: how do you see things in terms of the turnout there in virginia so far. >> it's extraordinary, scott. from what i've seen and a lot of the precincts, this will exceed the 2008 turnout which was significant. in some areas 75, 80% n fact even though the polls closed at 7:00 we've still got people standing in line right now that are still waiting to cast their vote because the law is if you're in line at 7:00 you can vote. we knew it was going to be a very close election. it will be a while before we make any predictions here in virginia. i think governor romney will win in a close election here based on what i've seen but it's going to be an hour or two before we

have a good sign. >> pelley: do you have any sense whether governor romney is winning in those key counties he will have to pick up in order to carry your state? >> i hate to play the role of public depth but -- pundit but looking at the absentee numbers we're doing better than expected in some of those areas and down a little in the absentee precincts the president had done well on in 2008. there's so few really bell weather prevents in right now. the bell weather precincts, there are people standing in line voting. scott, it's too early to call. we thought it was about even going in but the enthusiasm gap was on the republican side. and the turnout to vote it was about even that means we win. that's what i'm expecting and i think it's an opportunity and energy message is what's going to carry the day here but it will be an hour or two before we know what's going on. >> pelley: virginia used to be reliably republican. you're a republican governor. i wonder why you think it's so

close tonight. >> well, it was reliably republican for 40 years for the presidency. the president won by 7 points four years ago ran a great campaign. but at the governor level, at the state house level it's been back and forth for that same 40 or 45 years. five republican, five democrat governors. so this isn't saying the people will vote the person and the issue not the party. and we're just hoping this is the year that the romney message of jobs and opportunity and debt reduction and dmer energy independence with one people will gravitate to. >> pelley: thank you governor for being with us. we've been talking to virginians as they left the polls in the commonwealth all day long. anthony mason has more information on what they've been telling us. anthony. >> in virginia 13 electoral votes is a state that president obama won four years ago and sizeably by 7 percentage points.

43-46%. one reason was his strength among women four years ago. president obama took women by 53-46% over john mccain. his lead among women is holding up this time around. it's anywhere hold but he's still up. where things have changed are among men. obama won men 51-47%. this time around governor romney is winning. one reason things have changed we asked men who would do a better job on the economy and overwhelming there 60-38% they mixed governor romney. women think president obama will do a better job on the economy. one reason why virginia who went for obama four years ago is still a toss up at this hour. >> pelley: one of the reason virginia's been changing is because the northern part of the state there's been a lot of population growth especially among liberal democrats. and i wonder, john dickerson,

you have spent a lot of time back and forth across the whole state of virginia. what have you seen. >> one of the big issues in virginia, we'll talk a lot about the state but one of the big issues are the defense cuts that are coming pop as a part of the budget -- come pop as a part of the budget deal. this affects two of the key swing areas in virginia. in northern virginia people work at the pentagon, they are contractors up there. in the hampton roads area down in the southeast portion. there's a romney rally in chesapeake which is a county that president obama won last time with governor bush won it once and then again as president bush he was re-elected at chesapeake county. at this rally i spoke to people as they walked out. they were talking about the defense cuts, taking jobs away from them and hurting the local economy. almost half of the economy is based on military spending. they call it the little pentagon. that area and in northern virginia, the issue of those

defense cuts is really on people's minds. >> pelley: the defense industry in virginia and the government industry in virginia has kept the unemployment rate there pretty low, about 5.9%. >> yes. it was interesting hearing governor macdonald. the reason he can't make any predictions yet, we know there's a big t nout everywhere, but the vote in virginia is pretty much specific where it comes from. barack obama has got to do really well in northern virginia. that's the suburbs around on the other hand, the big strength for governor romney is down in coal country in southeastern virginia. then governor romney probably has a better chance around norfolk because those defense issues you heard about. so when we get a better feel as to where most of this vote is turning out, we'll have a better feel as to who is actually ahead down there.

>> this will give either candidate a lot of confidence if they can carry virginia. >> a senior romney advisor says virginia is key. they feel good, because of the heavy turnout. those exit polls we talked about, 52% of the electorates is female. it was actually 54% in 2008. the female vote is down a little bit. one of the toughest fights was in virginia. there was a discussion about bindsers full of women and he went on the air saying he is for contra since and then obama came back with another ad contradicting that. >> you're watching cbs news coverage of election night 2012. pelley: th ou nora. you're watching election news coverage 2012. and i'm dana king. this is it... returns are now on thr

and i'm dana king. this is it... returns are now on thr way in from the east coast.. good evening. well come. this is it. the returns are on the way in from the east coast and the bay area is watching closely. we're going to talk with republicans in walnut creek. >> reporter: the party has yet to get started but republicans are feeling pretty good. if you're a republican in california, you're far outnumbered. only 29% are republican. 44% are democrats but nationwide we are feeling good about mitt romney's chance of winning the white house tonight. if he wins, he could turn the economy around. they are also looking at the state senate. currently the democrats hold 25 of those 40 seats in the senate

and they are worried they could gain another two seats and if they do, they would have a supermajority. >> one of the things that could stop that, prop 32. a lot of money put into that that would curtail the spending to democrats. a lot of issues republicans are watching tonight. we'll report it back to you. >> thank you. cbs 5 reporter is with some democrats in san francisco tonight. joe. >> reporter: ken, they are hoping they are setting up for a victory party here. it is too early to know whether the balloons are going to come down. i can tell you that as mentioned, yes, there is talk here about the supermajority in california. the democrats perhaps for the first time reaching that goal, but what they focused on now is they made 1 million calls over the last few days over prop 30 and prop 32. prop 30 the governor's

initiative on the budget. prop 32 they are asking people to vote against it because that would take money out of union members' dues to pay for politics. here in san francisco there is hope but it is measured as those returns are slowly coming in from the east coast. >> polls still open for several hours, joe. we'll be right back. more ,,,,,,

more local election coverage. good afternoon. a quick look at your forecast. 80s today for some of you. 50s for highs by friday. here is your extended forecast. we're sunny and dry tomorrow, but 10 to 15 degrees cooler. showers friday. and showers for part of the weekend. >> we're back in 25 minutes with more coverage. 0 now back to cbs news and scott pelley. add the wireless receiver exclusively from at&t,

and you're no longer tied to the tv outlet. move your tv wherever you want in your home...even outside. [ megan ] call now and switch to u-verse for just $29 a month for six months, with a total home dvr included, free for life. add hbo and cinemax and get the first three months free. plus you can bundle tv and u-verse high speed internet with speeds up to 24 megs. [ male announcer ] our total home dvr lets you record four shows at once... and play them back in any room. every channel is in 100-percent, crystal-clear digital picture and sound. and you can upgrade to get 170 hd channels -- that's more than cable. [ megan ] so call now and switch to u-verse for just $29 a month for six months, with a total home dvr included, free for life. add hbo and cinemax and get the first three months free. u-verse. it's tv like you've never seen before. ♪ >> pelley: the polls are now

closed in half the states but there's still time to vote in the other half. as america elects a president tonight. five of the nine swing states are now closed, including the two biggest, florida and ohio. but no projection yet in any of the swing states. mitt romney has a small lead over president obama in the electoral vote count but both are still a very long way to go from the winning number of 270. this is the presidential race as we have it at this moment. the states in blue are those that cbs news projects for president obama, those in red the states that cbs news projects for mitt romney. the states in white are those states where the polls have closed. but we do not have enough

information yet to make a projection. the states in gray of course are those where the voting continues. let's have a look at a few of the places where the president is winning. cbs news projects that president obama will carry his home state, the state of illinois, a state that he won in 2008 by 25%. cbs news projects that the president will carry the state of massachusetts. now this is governor romney's home state. of course this is the state where mr. romney was governor from 2003 to 2007, but it is a deep blue democratic state so no great surprise that the president has carried massachusetts. cbs news projects that the president will also carry the state of maryland. and the state of connecticut. cbs news projects the president will carry the state of maine and the state of rode island. we're also projecting that the president will be the winner in delaware. no great surprise, he won by 25% there in the last election, and

we project that the president will also carry the district of columbia. now let's look at a few of the places where governor romney is winning. cba news projects he will carry the state of tennessee. cbs news projects that mitt romney will carry the state of alabama. no surprise. we project that he will carry the sooner state oklahoma. cbs news projects that mitt romney will carry the state of mississippi. now before we go on from the mississippi graphic let me repeat to you one thing we mentioned before and that is how do we know that they will carry these states when so little of the vote has been counted so far. well, our projections are based on the vote that's been counted plus the exit polling that we have done in these states all day long. talking to the voters in both states. based on that information when we are absolutely confident we'll make the cbs news projection of the state that each candidate has won. and we will break in with that

breaking news every time we make a new projection. we'll interrupt whatever we're talking about to bring you the very latest information. let's have a look at the battle ground states now. these are the nine states where the vote could go either way. these are the states that both the president and governor romney been counting on to tip the election in their favor. we do not have enough information to poll any of these states yet but let's look at the tect hated vote in some of them. this is in ohio, 18 electorate votes that could be at the end of the day that ohio tips the balance for one candidate or the other. just 7% of the vote has been counted so far, and you can see that president obama is out with an early lead but a very long way to go yet. back in 2008, president obama carried the state by 5%. let's have a look at north carolina. 23% of the vote has been counted there and look at that.

it doesn't get a whole lot closer than that. president obama carried north carolina in the last election but he carried it by .3%. so it could not have been any closer then and tonight it's going to be very close as well. state of virginia both men are counting on virginia to help them build to that 270 electoral votes that they need to win. this is the tabulated vote as it's being counted at this moment. just 12% in at this point. and you can see that mitt romney is out to an early lead but still a very long way yet to go. bob schieffer, one of the states that will tip the balance for one of these machine tonight is the state of florida. the stakes could not be higher there. >> here is some good news for mitt romney. a fourth of the vote in florida are seniors. and mitt romney is winning the senior vote 58-42%.

what that suggests is that the democrats effort to convince senior citizens that romney was basically going to take away their medicare, that does not seem to be bothering the seniors all that much. he's going really heavily. on the other hand, 55 percent poafortofthe vote down there arn and president obama is leading that 53-46%. good news for both sides but that's really significant that seniors are going overwhelmingly. now this is the first wave of the exit poll but they seem to be going overwhelming for mitt romney in florida. >> pelley: now john dickerson is following the states for us and he's trying to get a sense of which way the wind is blowing in these states that are too close to call. john has gotten it down to the county by county vote in florida. john, what are you seeing. >> well in florida, scott, when i was down there reporting a democratic strategist said the

way to think about florida is it's three different states and two different countries. let's start with the three different states. republicans do well in the northern part all the way to duvall county where jacksonville is. that's where mitt romney has to do well tonight. democrats do well here in miami-dade in the southeastern part of the state. then they fight over the i-4 corridor from tampa to or alan development the two countries are the cubans and the non-cuban hispanic. there are now more non-cuban hispanics in florida than cubans and many of them are in the orlando area in orange county. that's the map in florida now and we'll be look to go see how the two men do. >> pelley: thank you very much. elaine quijano is on the i-4 corridor john was talking about. elaine. >> scott we're at a watch party at the university of south florida in tampa and this county, hillsborough county,

since 1960 voters have picked the winning presidential candidate in every election except for 1992 when they chose george h.w. bush. it's the start of the i-4 corridor which stretches across central florida, you cross the state, all the way to daytona beach. more than half of florida's population actually lives in that area including many undecided voters. there are a number of key groups as well that could determine what happens in this state. florida has the highest percentage of seniors in the country, from 17% of the population, hispanics in ethnically diverse groups here in florida make up about 22% of the population. now as for the polls, there have been some reports of very long lines, particularly in miami-dade county. people waiting upwards of three hours to vote. however, overall, scott, we have been talking to both state and county elections officials. they tell us there have not been

any major problems at the polls. >> pelley: thanks, elaine. nora o'donnell, cuban americans in the miami area in florida have long been reliably republican but the hispanic population of florida has been changing a great deal. >> it has been changing, a lot of puerto ricans along that i-4 corridor and orlando as well so that has changed the hispanic make up of florida which in most parts of the countries goes overwhelmingly for democrats. but the cuban vote generally goes for the republicans. i want to show you something too. if you look at hispanic population growth there you see it was just 16.8% in 2000. now it's 22.9% in 2011. hispanics are the fastest growing minority in this country. they are going to be a key story at the end of the night. >> pelley: about four million more hispanic register voters in this election than there were in 2008. anthony mason has been looking

at our exit polling information and he's getting a sense of which way the wind is blowing in one of these key swing states. anthony, what do you see snierks scot.>> all five of them still r toss up column. we wanted to take a look at new hampshire though and it's for electoral votes. critical in new hampshire. independentants make up 30% of the electorate but it's more than two of the each major parties. four years ago barack obama overwhelmingly won independents but his margin has narrowed. that's why we have new hampshire still in the toss up column, scott. >> pelley: now the other key battle of the evening, battle for the senate for the republicans to take back control of the senate, they need to end this night with four more seats than they started with.

and we're able to make a call right now on one of those senate seats in the state of maine. we, cbs news is projecting that angus king will be the winner in the state of maine. angus king is an independent. neither democratic nor republican and he has not told us yet which side he is going to align himself with. the former governor, who is now going to occupy the open seat, owe limb yeaolympia snowe is rem that seat so angus king will be taking that seat. byron pitts is keeping up with the campaigns in the senate and the house for us. byron. >> scott, it's very likely that angus king could be a king maker once he gets to washington. he's the independent scott as you said. you can see his gold chair there. though he hasn't said which side he'll caucus with, both parties believe there's a good chance he

will caucus with democrats. in maine it was a three person race between the former two-time governor of maine angus king who won and defeated cynthia king and republican state treasurer charlie summers. people look at our map for a second. we're talking to republicans just a little while ago this evening and had h they tell us y have to win one of the four seats on the east coast. they basically consider maine a loss. the belief is the king may caucus with the democrats. that leaves them with massachusetts, connecticut and virginia. in virginia republicans tell us just like the democrats, they have to do well with women voters. and according to the latest cbs news exit poll, independent women favor george alan 53% to 46% for tim kaine. scott, the senate race in virginia like the presidential race is very very tight at this hour. >> pelley: byron, thanks very much. let's have a look at the presidential race map as it stands at this moment. this is the number of electoral

votes that president obama and governor romney have at the moment. president obama has 64, mitt romney with 82. 270 electoral votes are needed to win. the states in red are those that cbs news projects will be carried by mitt romney, the states in blue are the states that we projected to be carried by the president. the states in white are those states where the polls have closed but we do not have enough information yet on which candidate is likely to win those states. but the moment we do, no matter what wire doin we're doing in os tonight on election night, we will break in with a bulletin every time we project a new state for one candidate or the other. the states in gray are those states where americans are still voting tonight. we'll be back with more election coverage in just a moment.

>> pelley: breaking news at the moment, cbs news projects that senator bill nelson is the winner in florida of the senate seat there. the battle for the senate is one of the themes of the night and we are projecting that the democrat bill nelson will keep the seat there in florida. let's have a quick look at the presidential race now. as we have it at the moment. these are the electoral votes that president obama and mitt romney have compiled so far. what's needed to win of course is 270. so it's early yet. the red states for romney, the blue states for obama. the white states are those states where we don't have enough information to make a call. the rest of the states are those where our americans are still voting. john dickerson has been working on the various ways that each

candidate can win the election tonight to get to the 270 votes. john, explain it to us. >> well, we haven't had any of those battle ground states come in yet. so the map is still where we saw it before. we've got governor romney at 191 and president obama at 236. if we just look at florida if that were to go to president obama he would just need to win one other state. so that shrinks of the total possible combination of states, nine battle ground states total possible combination there are 431 combinations for president obama because he starts with that early lead in states he's likely to get. there are just 76 combinations for governor romney. so if the president were to win florida that would shrink it down to one route to the presidency for governor romney he would have to win everything else. >> pelley: jock, thank you ver -- john,thank you very much.

one of the places so closely contested in these last few weeks is north carolina. let's have a quick look at the tabulated look at north carolina. these are the actual votes that have been counted so far. 30% of the vote in and it doesn't get a whole lot closer than that. a lot of those to count yet. certainly not enough information yet for us to make a projection, but north carolina, absolutely critical. >> and i think north carolina may turn out to be one of the biggest stories of the night. if what we're seeing so far from these exit polls holds up. the obama people has said from the beginning that winning north carolina would be the hardest of the battle ground states for them to win. they just weren't sure they could do it. but our exit polls are telling us that the president is getting the same black voter turnout he got the last time around. now 23% of the vote down there in north carolina is african american. 96% of them have been supporting the president according to the

exit polling that we're doing right now. if he can keep that up, he is going to win north carolina. and i got to tell you, most of us were already putting north carolina even though we called it a battle ground state, we are putting it in the romney column because we couldn't think he could create that magic again. remember back during the summer one of president obama's top aidaidstopaides told me. if this keeps up and gets a good black vote and gets a turn out of young people i will win north carolina. >> pelley: you were in north carolina a couple weeks ago for 60 minutes that struck us the textile mills that used to employ thousands of workers being ripped apart by demolition equipment because those businesses had gone out of business. north carolina with still an unemployment rate of 10%. you would think that would be a

tail wind for mitt romney. >> exactly. this day obama won by just 14,000 votes in 2008 with his smallest margin of victory in the entire country. the president and the democrats held their convention in charlesville north carolina -- in north charlotte, north carolina in order to put them back in their win column. the president hasn't been back to north carolina since the convention which led a lot of people to say north carolina is in the wrong column. i've been obsessed with north carolina for a long time and let me tell you why. in part the number that bob mentioned, 23% of african americans make up the ler electorate. that is higher than any other battle ground state that we're talking about, scott. 23%. about 20% in virginia. they ran a campaign called barber shop and beauty programs where they went into barber shops and talked to other african americans to get to medical. that is a unique state the way they worked there. they didn't use the president there but they sent michelle obama there a lot, she was just there on monday and bill clinton

was in north carolina as well. >> we must stress it's early in the evening and we're operating on early figures. but this could be the first real surprise of the evening, if the trend continues down there. >> pelley: the strength of the president in north carolina. >> yes. >> pelley: thank you, bob. let's have a quick look at the presidential race map as it stands just now. the red states we are projecting for mitt romney, the blue states for president obama. but as bob just said, it is early yet. cbs news coverage of election night, 2012, will continue? just a moment. >> pelley: breaking news, cbs

news projects that president obama will carry the state of

new jersey. and its 14 electoral votes. with that let's have a look at the presidential race map. mr. obama has 78 electoral votes, mitt romney 82 electoral votes at this early stage on the way to 270 needed to win. anthony mason has been looking at some of the swing states where we don't have enough information yet to make a projection but you can tell us which way the wind is blowing in some of them. >> yes and the win has shifted somewhat of the five battle ground states where polls have closed we're now moving the first one off the toss up board, it's the state of ohio. we have our election desk has it leading to president obama. that means our election desk sees a slight advantage for president obama in ohio. let me caution you in these leaning states they could still possibly lean back as the night goes on. we also wanted to take a look at the state of north carolina and its 15 electoral votes which you were talking about a little while ago. we asked voters in north carolina when did they decide when they were going to volt, --

vote and fully 83% fold us they decided -- fold us they decided in the past month. of those who decided in the last month, let's take a look at the early deciders first there was a narrow advantage for president obama there. 51-48%. here's what's interesting. of those who decided in the last month, scott, the tide turns the momentum shifts to governor romney. he has a 53-42 advantage among those decided in the last month in north carolina. so things swinging his way. north carolina still in the toss up category scott and again our headline is we have moved the state of ohio into the lean president obama category at this hour. >> pelley: anthony, thank you very much. you're watching cbs news coverage of election night 2012.

you're watching cbs5 eyewitness news campaign 2012, election day. good evening i'm dana king. >> and voters going to great lengths to cast their ballots. there was the scene, santa clara county, voters driving up and dropping off their mail in ballots. >> in san jose, people are voting on a measure that would directly affect the paychecks of 40,000 people. kit doe is watching measure d. >> reporter: we are live here in south bay labor council. a very busy room. calling people to tell them to get out the vote here. they are talking about measure d, to boost the minimum wage from $8 to $10.

a lot of labor unions their tag line is this is the right thing to do. the business leaders say this will drive jobs out of city and hurt the economy overall. joining us now is cindy chavez, the executive director of the council. and we were talking that you like your chances in the general election because you say the turnout is in your favor. >> all these people you see on the phones are going to be on the phone until 8:00 and if you work hard and play by the rules, you ought to make a fair wage. >> reporter: we'll be watching the polls for measure d. we'll send it back to you for now. >> thank you very much. now to sidney looking to tax soda. we'll have a live report coming up next ,,,,,,

first city soda... there is a drastic move in the east bay to combat obesity. the city of richmond wants to become the first city in the nation to tax soda.

cbs 5 reporter mike sugerman has that story. >> reporter: there's a man in richmond who thinks this might be a killer. he was put on the ballot a measure that would tax sodas one penny per ounce and dragging around 40 pounds of sugar just to e show how much the average teenager drinks every year. >> a third of our will latino students and a third o of the african-american students are obese and another 20% are overweight in each group. those young people are going to die younger than they should. >> and that's the scene here. back to you. >> with a live report from richmond, we'll be back in 25 minutes with more local coverage. >> now we'll throw it back to

cbs news and scott pelley. pelley: breaking news of

the moment, cbs news projects that mitt romney will carry the state of arkansas. no great surprise there. john mccain won the state of arkansas by 20% in 2008. mid mid will take arkansas and that changes our presidential race map. let's have a look. president obama with 78 electoral votes and the states that you see in blue. mitt romney with 88 electoral votes, the states that you see in red. both men trying to be the first to reach 270 electoral votes. the states in white are no, sir states where thsir -- are thosee the polls are closed and we don't have enough information yet to make a projection. states in gray are those states where americans are still

voting. bob schieffer, let's have a look really quickly at the ohio tabulated board. we don't have enough information yet but have a look at this, bob. 20% of the vote has been counted. president obama out to a significant lead with 20% of the vote counted. our cbs news exit polling information, also, bob, suggests that ohio is leaning the president's way. >> well, i think in this case the economy is better in ohio than it is in some of these other battle ground states. this is where you're seeing the effect of the bailout, you're seeing unemployment at five something percent rather than the seven or pate percent in other parts of the country. the economy is playing a role in ohio. but this time it's better than it was in other places. >> pelley: joe' ohio's reallyy of the president's plan to block mitt romney. if the president carried ohio that's a big road block to

romney's route to the whitehouse. >> yes he needs to win the other battle ground states to make up for the electoral votes in ohio. here's what's interesting in ohio. we're talking about the number of jobs tied to the auto bailout. look inside our exit polls, 59ers percent say they approved of the auto bailout. 75% of those voted for obama. here's a fun fact, scott, because of the uaw agreement, chrysler, ford, gm workers all got election day off to go to the polls. >> now we're talking about american politics. >> pelley: no doubt, no doubt a big help for the president in ohio where a lot of cars and a lot of car parts are made. john dickerson has been working ohio for many months now going the length and breadth of that state talking to voters. and tonight he has a county by county analysis for us to give us some sense of what we might expect. john. >> i would like to take you through every county but i won't do that to you.

white worker class men, there's a lot of talk about them in ohio and who is going to win that vote. in a recent visit when i was there, i was talking to some republicans about belmont county, a county that went for the president, went for john kerry and it was as you can see, the president got 50% of the vote, beat john mccain there. what republicans said they saw something in early vote and were worried all these people were turning out. so they called into that county and talked to people who voted and they found out they were voting for mitt romney. look, 59%. now only 21% of the vote is in so we don't want to go overboard. we were hearing these conversations and we were hearing more broadly among blue collar man governor romney gets 59% and president obama will get 39% of the vote. we'll look at the portion of the state where mitt romney thought he could pick up a lot of voters that would traditionally vote for the democratic candidate.

>> pelley: thank you, we're going to switch over to boston and speak to ed gillespie who is one of mitt romney's autopsy communicatio --top communicatio. thank you for being with us. it looks like ohio is leaning the president's way. i wonder how you see ohio. >> we feel pretty good about ohio, scott. the fact is where you look where the turnout is highest, we have great turnout in republican leading areas. we were able to shave 263,000 votes in the early vote in the absentee ballots from the advantage that president obama enjoyed over senator mccain in 2008. in the diminishment of the democrats early vote advantage, our republican intensity and what we've been seeing in the polls relative to independent voters in ohio, we feel like it's very much in our side tonight when i look at where these votes are coming in from we also female good about thal -- feel good about the

numbers in the county and precincts and need to carry with big numbers and we're doing that tonight. >> pelley: one of the swing states we do not have enough information to make a call on, terribly close at this hour is the state of virginia. the turnout there has been very heavy today, and i wonder if you think that that cuts for the president or if it's cuts for mitt romney. >> i think it's going to cut for us. that's my home state, i know it very well. again when i look at the areas that turned out. cold country that's true of ohio as well, southeast ohio, southwest virginia and southwest pennsylvania is cold country. all of that is turning out in a big big way for mitt romney we believe. when you look at virginia beach, when you look at roanoke, when you look at chest meek and other parts of the commonwealth of virginia, big number out of the northern virginia but northern virginia is a swing region. governor mcdonald carried it very big in his governor's race, president obama carried it heavily in 2008. we feel very good about where we are in the three counties in northern virginia right now. >> pelley: ed gillespie, senior advisor to mitt romney.

mr. glef los gillespie thanks fg with us. our correspondent in virginia, wyatt andrews has been looking at the vote there, and wyatt you have some new information. >> scott we just learned the state board of elections here in virginia has temporarily suspended the reporting of election results for one reason. there are still hundreds if not thousands of people still in line. we've just confirmed this with the campaigns. they report to us that in northern virginia, in richmond and in several cities in the hampton roads area, newport news, virginia beach, people are still in line. and under the rules in virginia, scott, if you are in line at 7:00 p.m. and a tate election official comes out and places himself or herself in that way and if you are in line at 7:00 you get to vote state officials told me no matter how long it takes tonight. officials were i think somewhat surprised by the over 70% turnout today.

they told me earlier today that in prince william county which is a county around virginia, 30 miles southwest of washington, this is a key swing county that both campaigns desperately hope to win tonight. in prince williams i was told voters were waiting four hours in line and state officials were scrambling to get new election machines there in the middle of the day. virginia has suspended the reporting of its results because the people in line are influenced by what we report. >> pelley: wyatt, thank you very much. virginia's vote count going to be delayed tonight it will make it a very long night because virginia is so crural to particularly the recall they -- romney campaign. we have a number of projections we can make tonight. the senate, the battle of the senate very important this evening. cbs news is projecting that senator bob menendez will hold on to his seat in margin. inew jersey.christopher fee wie

winner of a hard fall campaign in the state of connecticut. this has been a real donny brook of a campaign. his opponent, linda mcmahon, the republican, has spent about $100 million of her own money on two campaigns for the united states senate. the state has been carpet bombed by advertising. it is one of the most expensive senate campaigns in the country. and cbs news is now projecting that the winner will be the democrat, christopher murphy. byron pit is following the senate race for us tonight. byron. >> it's a tough fight. this is a big win for democrats and a big disappointment for republicans. keep in mind republicans need to pick up four seats to take control of the senate. they were hopeful in connecticut. this is senate joe lieberman's old seat.

he retired, he was a democrat and became an independent. republicans thought they had a real good chance here but in the end connecticut goes to democratic congress monomer fee. he defest linda mcmahon. as scott said she spent a lot of her own money to lose twice in a race for the senate. she scored murph maria murphy 8. if she had won she would be the first female and first republican since 1982. because of the historic nature of this race we want to look at the exit polling and it shows women favor murphy in connecticut, 57% to 41% for mcmahon. we can quickly look at our map again of the united states, we said early the republicans said they had to win at least one race in the east coast. they've lost in maine and massachusetts and connecticut. that leaves only massachusetts and virginia. so scott at this hour it's looking more and more difficult challenging for the republicans to pick up those four seats they would need to take control of

the senate. >> byron, thank you very much. a little bit surprising that that connecticut race has wrapped up so early. let's have a quick look at the presidential race map as it stands at this moment. 270 electoral votes needed to win. president obama right now with 78, mitt romney with 88. you can see there are states in blue and red are very long way to go tonight and a lot of suspense from states like ohio, north carolina, virginia and florida where we do not have enough information in order to make a projection yet. cbs news coverage of election night, 2012 continues in just a moment. >> pelley: welcome back to

election night on cbs. let's take a quick look at the presidential race map. this is the race has ever a it s this moment. 270 votes necessary to win. president obama with 78, mr. romney with 88. you see the states in red and blue. the states in white are those states where we just do not have enough information in order to make a projection yet and the state of virginia breaking news of this hour, the polls were supposed to have closed in virginia at 7:00 eastern time. but the polls in many places in the state have been overwhelmed by voters. there are so many voters still standing in line at this hour that the state has made the decision to stop reporting election results and allow everyone standing in line to cast their vote. and the state will not start reporting election results again until everyone has voted. they don't want to influence

anyone's vote by reporting partial results. so even though the polls were supposed to close in virginia at 7:00 eastern time in many places they are still open, people are still voting because the turnout has been so heavy and virginia is so critical to the prospects of both mr. romney and the president. let's have a look at the tabulated vote in virginia as it stood, the last time we had information, 31% of the vote had been counted and you can see there mit mitt out to a lead but again only a little more than, a little under a third of the vote has been counted there so far. bob schieffer, it could be a long night tonight if we don't hear from virginia. >> it could. virginia and those that live in the district of columbia too are just getting used to the fact that this is a battle ground state. in october of 2004, there had

been seven ads aired on television stations in washington the candidates have to buy washington in order to reach northern virginia. seven ads aired in washington television stations in 2004 in october of 2012 there were 7,746 aired in the district of columbia. so many ads when i fall asleep i dream about them. you can't get away from them when you're asleep. it's a whole different deal out there now. >> pelley: there really has been two presidential campaigns in this country. in 41 states people have watched the presidential campaign on their newscasts. in nine states, they had not been able to get away from the relentless bombardment of presidential campaign ads. >> a lot of those ads talked about were focused on the women's vote in virginia which in 20089 was 54%, according to

exit polls it's 52% which is down, which is not good news for product who usually has been among women. here's something interesting that debate we had where they talked about, mitt romney talked about having binders full of women to fulfill some jobs in the massachusetts state house. immediately after that the romney team was concerned they would have a problem with women voters so he went up with an ad in virginia that said he does not oppose contraception and abortion should be legal in cases of rape, incest and to save a method' mother's life. quickly the obama team responded to the ad in virginia in which romney said he would be delighted to sign a bill banning all abortions. there were particular ads aim at women voters in virginia over the issue of abort rights. >> pelley: thank you very much. john dickerson is watching the vote in virginia county by county. john i wonder what you're seeing. >> well one county i wanted to look at here. well first let's just look at

virginia overall. what do you see, you see a lot of red. those are the recall no counties -- romney dow countiese has to do well in there. this has got a big african american population but then also a lot of suburban conservatives. 42% of the vote in. obama is winning. people who know about the state say if you win in ryko you can win the state. he's winning not over what he did with john mccain but he's doing well. we don't know about the big county for him in virginia which is fairfax but let's look at one of the counties that governor romney is doing well in. he is doing well and better than john mccain is. he has to do much better than john mccain did in all of those red areas to match the president president's big score. >> pelley: thank you very much. news coverage of election night 2012 will return in just a moment. >> welcome back to election

night on cbs. let's catch you up right at the moment. let's look at the presidential race map. this is where things stand right now. 270 electoral votes needed to win. president obama with 78 at this point, mitt romney with 88. you can see their respective states in red and blue. the states in white are states where the polls have closed by and large but we do not have enough information yet in order to make a projection 9 headline of the hour is the state of virginia which was supposed to have closed its polls right now but has been so overwhelm by turnout that they are going to extend the voting in virginia this evening so that everyone who is standing in line there will ultimately have an

opportunity to vote. we have valerie jared a senior advisor to the president. ms. jared about a month ago we interviewed the president for the cbs evening news and we asked him if there's a chance he could lose this election. and he said absolutely there's a chance. i wonder when you're thinking tonight. >> tonight we're feeling terrific. it's great to be back home in chicago. we spent since that interview traveling all over our country focusing in those battle ground states and the energy on the ground is amazing. i was in florida just a few days ago over the weekend and the thousands and thousands of people who are coming outstanding in line waiting to participate in the early vote was just a strong signal of their energy and enthusiasm for president obama. so we feel really good tonight. >> pelley: our exit polling information is telling us that ohio at this moment is leaning the president's way. not enough information to make a

projection yet but leaning the president's way. what would that mean to the president's prospects tonight? >> it's key. as you know we've spent a great deal of time talking about ohio. we were just there yesterday and it's very important that we win ohio. our grassroots organization there is tremendous. we've been working for months and in some cases years as part of the obama family. what they can do is amazing. they built relationships, neighbors knocking on neighbors' doors, people making phone calls. coming in from all over to try to get out that vote. that's what i think is so unique about our campaign is it is a grassroots campaign. it's where everybody gets involved and we're so delighted to see people participating in our democracy. >> pelley: valerie jared, senior advisor to president obama. thank you very much for being with us tonight. >> you're welcome. thank you, scott. >> pelley: let us have a look at the tabulated vote as it stands right now in the state of florida. now this is another one of those nine swing states we've been

talking about tonight, but it is the largest of them all in terms of electoral votes. 29 electoral votes, 63% of the vote has been counted and have a look at that. it is difficult to get much closer than that. still have a third of the vote a little over a third of the vote yet to go but still not enough information from the lab tated vote or our exit polls in order to make a projection on florida. as we've said, we've had interviewers all over the country in every state, interviewing voters as they left the polls today. we had a treasure trove of information from those voters. anthony mason is keeping up with all of that. anthony, i wonder, what have the voters in florida been telling us. >> well scott as you mentioned, nurse of all we've got -- first of all we've got battle ground, four of them in the toss up category. florida with its 29 electoral votes. seniors, a critical voting block in florida.

they make up nearly a quarter of the electorate there. four years ago john mccain won seniors by a margin of 8 points. this time around, governor mitt romney is winning them by an even bigger margin, 16 percentage points. a lot of seniors of course vocal pa ponents of the president's awaffordable care act and some told us they would repeal some or all of it. who would do a better job on medicare, they give the advantage to romney by a 53-40% margin florida does. it's interesting if you ask people in florida under the age of 65, they think president obama will do a better job on medicare. but florida still a toss up, scott. >> pelley: thank you very much anthony. cbs election night continues in a moment.

>> good evening. the polls closed here in california -- close here in california in about 2 hours. >> plenty of time to vote. julia is at a polling place in san leandro tonight. >> reporter: hi. a lot of people are getting off work and they are casting their votes. here this one polling site. we talked to a lot of voters. some people had an easy experience finding their polling location and others said it was a challenge. on this sunny election day, gary fletcher of pleasant ton and his wife took their dogs for a walk and headed out to their local polling site to vote. so what drew you to the polls in terms of the local races? >> we always vote, number one. the mayor's race is up.

we have two council seats up and all the propositions -- trying to vote. >> my wife and i are going to try to vote and i don't know if it is going to work. >> reporter: jose vargas of oakland had a different voting experience. his usual polling site wasn't open and he and his wife spent all day finding out where to vote. they finally ended up at the alameda county registrar's office. >> in order for them to do what we have to do to vote, our vote isn't going to count. >> reporter: in alameda county, voting opened last weekend at the registrar's office but turnout wasn't so great. >> 4 years ago, we were open on the weekends and we had lines of people around the courthouse. this weekend, we were open and we never had more than about 20 people in line. >> reporter: a few glitches. there was a power outage in free month. so -- free mont. they were able to make the

process work. as for polling places they close at 8:00. i'm juliette goodrich, cbs 5. >> thank you. and we'll be right back. ,,,,,,,,

it is certainly rewarding. meets people, public people. and getting to know all my neighbors. >> just like she does every election day, 96-year-old alyssa kennedy is inviting voters into her garage in her san francisco home. she is the longest running poll worker in the state going on 63 years. and today the secretary of state is honoring her for her dedication. the first election she worked was eisenhower versus stevenson in '52. we are back in 25 minutes with more local election coverage. >> back to cbs news. hat the price of things just keeps going up. [ female announcer ] but we have some good news.

it's our bundle price promise. [ male announcer ] a price you can definitely count on, for two whole years. from at&t. [ female announcer ] a great price for a great triple-play bundle. [ male announcer ] call now. bundles with u-verse tv, internet and home phone start at $89 a month. now get the same great price for two years. [ female announcer ] switch today and get a total home dvr included, free for life. [ male announcer ] you get reliable, high speed internet on our advanced digital network. choose from speeds up to 24 megs. [ female announcer ] and with u-verse tv you can record four shows at once on your total home dvr and play them back in any room. [ male announcer ] so call now. u-verse triple-play bundles start at $89 a month. now get the same great price for two years. [ female announcer ] with a total home dvr included, free for life. [ male announcer ] it's a triple-play bundle that's hard to beat. same great price. two whole years. price promise. [ female announcer ] that has a nice ring to it. [ male announcer ] only from at&t. ♪

>> pelley: now it's getting interesting. polls are closed in 40 of the 50 states as america elects a president tonight. headline of the hour: cbs news estimates that ohio and wisconsin-- two of the key battleground states that could tip the balance-- are leaning towards president obama. but we cannot project a winner yet in thu either state or any f the five battleground states where the polls are closed. let's look at the presidential race map as it stands at this moment. 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency. we are now showing president obama with 123 and mitt romney with 153. mr. romney's states are shown there in red. mr. obama's in blue. the states in white are state

where polls are closed but we don't have enough information to make a projection of a winner the states. the states in gray are those where people are still voting. let's have a look at some of the states where mitt romney is picking up his electoral votes the state of texas won by john mccain by 12%. i project mitt romney will win that state for the republicans in this election as well. next door, the state of louisiana we are projecting for mitt romney we are projecting mitt romney will be the winner the state of kansas. mitt romney the winner in the state of nebraska. we are projecting that mitt romney is the winner north dakota and in south dakota as well. we are projecting that mitt romney will carry the state of wyoming. now, looking at some of the places where the president is winning. we are projecting the president will carry the state of new york and its 29 electoral votes. very large state and a very big win for the president.

we are looking at michigan as well as a state that will be carried by the president. the unemployment rate is 9.3% there, but the president's auto bailout back in 2009, the auto company bailout has played very well in the state of michigan and mr. obama won it by 17% in 2008 and we are projecting that he will win it again today. now, let's have a look at the battleground states. these are the states that could go either way in this campaign and it has been fascinating tonight. breaking news of the hour. our correspondents in virginia and florida are reporting to us that even though the polls were to have closed in those states, both states have been so overwhelmed by the turnout that they have kept the polls open in virginia and florida to allow every voter who is standing in line to go ahead and vote and, in fact, virginia has stopped

reporting election results, has suspended that until all of the voters have had a chance to vote. they don't want to influence people with election returns. major stakes figuring now -- major states are still voting long after they were to have closed. let's have a look at the tabulated vote in florida right now. this is one of the -- this is the largest of all of the swing states with 29 electoral votes. this is the a tabulated vote being counted right now. the actual number of votes. have a look at that: it does not get much closer than that. more than six million votes have been counted so far and is a razor thin lead for the president in florida with 72% of the vote counted. state of ohio is another big battleground state. 18 electoral votes, 27% of that

vote in. mr. obama out to a sizable lead over mitt romney but a lot of counting to do. state of north carolina, another of the swing states. 63% of the vote has been counted. look at how close it is in north carolina. the president won north carolina in 2008 by 0.3% in virginia, 38% of the vote has been counted, mr. romney out to a lead but, again, two-thirds of the vote still yet to be counted. state of new hampshire, another wing state, it has 11% of the vote counted so far and president obama out to an early lead with a long way to go in the counting in new hampshire. anthony mason has been keeping up with the exit polling information. we've been talking to folks leaving the polls all day long in these states, anthony. tell us which way these states

seem to be leaning. >> scott, as you mentioned, seven of the nine battleground states where polls have closed now, we've moved another state, the state of wisconsin and its ten electoral votes over into the lean obama column alongside ohio. this means we feel president obama has slight leads in both of those states a caution they still lean back. but the advantage to obama there. let's look at wisconsin. one reason why we have a wisconsin leaning to obama are young voters who make up about 20% of the electorate in wisconsin. this is a group that president obama won handily four years ago. almost 2-1. 64% to 35%. he's ahead again this time around. not quite as strongly but still with a sizable majority. those young voters told us overwhelmingly they are satisfied with the obama administration. 71% said they were satisfied. who do they blame for the state of the economy? well, number one, former president obama. 59% told us they put him at the top of the list and pointed the finger at him for the blame. but the state of wisconsin, the

we have them leaning towards president obama, young voters the reason why, scott. >> pelley: anthony, thank you very much. the strategy tonight as you know is to put together enough states to get to 270 electoral votes. john dickerson has been doing the math for us and has a lesson on how you reach 270. john? >> scott, let's embrace for moment the obama fantasy which is that we've put ohio and wisconsin into the lean category, we haven't gone more than, that but they would like those two states to go to president obama. so let's imagine just for a moment that they did. if wisconsin went to president obama, mitt romney's chances using those nine battleground state, he has 76 chances, they would shrink to 24 chances. if the president then got ohio, mitt romney's chances would shrink down to one. he would have to win every other state, virginia, north carolina, new hampshire, nevada, iowa, florida, colorado. only then if he won every remaining state would he surpass

that 270 mark. >> pelley: john, thank you very much. norah, wisconsin, not enough information to make a call. this is where mitt romney found his running mate in paul ryan. thought that would do the trick. it hasn't yet. >> it hasn't done the trick. but this is a state that hasn't gone republican since 1984 when ronald reagan won their handily. in 2004, george w. bush did try and turn wisconsin republican, he almost did it. it has been democrat for obama in the l.a.x. election by 14 points. but republicans wanted to make wisconsin part of the battleground as a fail safe against ohio. >> that was not really a battleground state for all practical purposes until governor romney put paul ryan on to the ticket and this moved it into the uncertain column but i

think it would be a real surprise to most observers, independent observers if somehow mitt romney won that state. it's just a democratic state. what has it gone last six presidential elections democrats have won out there. >> pelley: and paul ryan's not particularly well known throughout the state. he's a congressman from the first congressional district and beyond that the folks in wisconsin don't know him well. >> that's the fate of all congressmen. nobody in houston knows who the congressman from amarillo is. (laughter) >> pelley: we were telling you just a moment ago that something unusual has happened this evening. the polls were supposed to be closed the polls are staying open past closing time until everybody who's in line has had a chance to vote. wyatt andrews broke the news in virginia. here just a few moments ago and i wanted to go back to wyatt and ask him about developments there.

wyatt? >> scott, we have just now heard from the obama cam main voting has resumed -- sorry, the reporting of election results has resumed in virginia. it was suspended for about an hour and a half here because of the thousands of people still in line waiting. and the rules in virginia, if you are in line at 9:00 you get to vote no matter how long it takes, state officials told me earlier today. i'm still told, though, that there are long lines in northern virginia, in richmond and in the wood bridge area 20 miles south of washington, d.c. again, scott, apparently volting results -- reporting has resumed in virginia after around an hour and a half suspension. that's still -- that still doesn't mean -- still means the state will probably take a very long time to report the results given that 90 minute suspension. >> pelley: wyatt, thank you. let's have a look at what those results are at the moment. this is the virginia tabulated vote. as wyatt just reported, virginia is reporting its vote again 41%

of that vote has been counted. mitt romney out to an early lead and yet a lot of counting to do yet. not enough information from our exit polls in order to make a projection in virginia. a similar situation has happened in florida and our elaine quijano is at a polling place there. elaine? >> scott, we're at a watch party here at the university of south florida and tampa and what i can tell you that we've had a lot of reports of some very long wait times for voters. particularly in the miami-dade county area voters waiting upwards of three hours to vote. now it's important to note that the reason for that elections officials say is because there's a very long ballot this year here is the hillsboro county ballot. it is six pages long. there are a number of

amendments, as well as county questions that voters in florida are deciding so that's one of the reasons why it's taken so long for voters to go ahead and cast their ballots. now, all day long as well officials with the secretary of state's office here in florida have emphasized to us that any voters who are in line as of 7:00 p.m. will, in fact, be allowed to cast their votes but that's certainly something they have seen here in the state of florida, some very long lines throughout the day. >> pelley: well, dade county obama country, lain. and thank you very much for that. let's have a quick look at the florida tabulated vote as it stands right now. state of florida has 76% of the vote that has been counted and have a look at that. 50-50. >> have we ever had a close election in florida before? (laughter) >> pelley: i know florida is just that way. but look at that, almost seven million votes cast. it's 50-50, folks, with 76% of

the vote counted. so i think florida may be keeping us up late tonight. cbs news coverage of election night 2012 will continue in just a moment. ♪

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but when i was in an accident... cities and towns than verizon. i was worried the health care system spoke a language all its own with unitedhealthcare, i got help that fit my life. so i never missed a beat. that's health in numbers. unitedhealthcare. but what about your wrinkles? neutrogena® rapid wrinkle repair visibly reduces fine lines and wrinkles in just one week. why wait if you don't have to. neutrogena®. >> pelley: breaking news, cbs news projects that the republican party will retain control of the house of representatives. byron pitts is following the action in the house and senate races tonight. byron? >> well, scott, the magic number for republicans in the house tonight was 218 and cbs news projects they will get to 218 and keep control of the house of

representatives that's good news for stprous john boehner. more than likely he will keep his job. as for the democratic minority leader nancy pelosi, talk will begin tonight whether or not she should be replaced because she promised to win back control of the house for democrats and it looks like she will fail in that task this evening. at the end of the night, this was probably a status quo election in the house of representatives. this congress has the lowest approval rating ever measure. it was down to 9%, recently it boosted up to 15% but keep in mind, the congress have been out of session since september. on average, incumbents have won reelection in congress nearly 94% of the time. even in 2010, when the tea party picked up seats, even then 5% of the time incumbents won reelection. so, scott, it looks like that trend will continue tonight and

at this point it looks like cbs news has projected that republicans will keep control of the house of representatives. they will get to that magic number of 218. scott? >> reporter: byron, thank you very much. breaking news, cbs news now projects that president obama will carry the state of pennsylvania. this is a major win for the president on the way to 270 electoral votes if he's able to get there tonight. pennsylvania, bob schieffer, for president obama certainly good news for them. >> oh, absolutely. and this was a democratic state for a long, long time. at the end the romney people told us they thought they might have a chance. i think it was really a hail mary mass that they threw. they did put money in there as they put money into minnesota but i think this was a long, long shot to think mitt romney was going to carry pennsylvania.

>> on that point, mitt romney was in pennsylvania today, he was in pittsburgh today trying to make a play for pennsylvania, a state where democrats have over a million voter registration advantage. they tried to make a late play for it, it didn't pay off, it makes it more important that mitt romney wins ohio tonight. >> pelley: nancy cordes is in chicago with the obama campaign. how are they taking this news? >> scott, obama campaign officials said all along they never thought pennsylvania was in play. they acknowledged there was natural tightening in the polls but they have carried this blue state for so long and they said they didn't see anything in their internal polling that suggested as the romney camp was arguing that the romney team ever had a shot there. however, they did send former president bill clinton to four cities in pennsylvania yesterday, it showed they were trying to blunt some of romney's momentum in that state. president clinton very popular in pennsylvania so that's where he spent his final day of

campaigning. but this is a big relief for the obama campaign. there were several light blue states, as they put it. : michigan, minnesota and pennsylvania principally where the romney campaign argued that things were tightening and looking up for them in these final days. it now appears at least one of those light blue states is saying in the blue column. >> this is one of those states that david axelrod, the president's campaign manager, said he would shave his mustache if they lost there. (laughter) so i kind of have a feeling they thought they were going to win. >> pelley: thought they were going to win but the romney campaign sure made a run at in the these last several days and weeks. let's look at the presidential race board as it stands right now now that president obama has moved into president obama's column. 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency. you see the president now with 143 and mitt romney with 153. you see the president's states in blue, mr. romney's in red. the states in white are those states where the polls have closed and we just do not have

enough information to make a projection yet. the states in gray are the states that are still voting. cbs news coverage of this fascinating election night 2012 continues in a moment.

i'm an expert on softball. and tea parties. i'll have more awkward conversations than i'm equipped for because i'm raising two girls on my own. i'll worry about the economy more than a few times before they're grown. but it's for them, so i've found a way. who matters most to you says the most about you. massmutual is owned by our policyholders so they matter most to us. massmutual. we'll help you get there. >> pelley: welcome back to election night on cbs. let's go right to the presidential race map. this is the way it stands at this moment. 270 electoral votes to win. you see the president's states in blue, mitt romney's states in red. the white states we don't have enough information yet in order to make a projection in those states. the gray states are still voting. the battleground states tonight, nine states that could go either

way, very likely to tip the balance for one candidate or the other tonight. we have exit polling information from all of those states. anthony mason has been looking at that tonight to try to give us a sense of which way the wind is blowing. anthony? >> pelley.>> scott, the electios moving the state of new hampshire and its four electoral votes into the "lean obama" column joining ohio and wisconsin there. that means in the view of our election desk president obama has a slight advantage in those state bus as we've been cautioning all night long there's still the possibility it could lean back. but we wanted to turn our attention to the state of colorado and its nine electoral votes. the battleground state still a tossup. immigration a very big issue in colorado. and we asked voters in our exit poll in colorado whether they favored giving a chance for legal status to illegal immigrants. and nearly two-thirds, 64%, told us they did. among those voters, president obama is winning handily tonight. he's taking 59% of those who had

-- who are in favor of giving some kind of chance at legal status. it's also helping him among hispanic voters in colorado who make up 11% of the electorate there. four years ago the president took 61% of the hispanic vote in colorado. this time around look what's happening. he's winning three quarters of the hispanic vote, scott. colorado still a tossup. again, our headline, we have moved the state of new hampshire, its four electoral votes, into the lean obama column. >> pelley: anthony, thank you. let's have a look at the state of colorado tabulated vote as it's being counted right now. 32% of the vote has been counted. president obama out to an early lead but still a lot of counting to go. norah, colorado, very important to both candidates. >> in fact, the growing hispanic population in colorado, like some other states like florida and nevada, make it very popular in terms of where that vote would be and have them courting the hispanic vote. i just want to show you something because both sides tried to court the hispanic

vote. obama outspent romney 2-1 in terms of advertising on spanish language televisions. he even taped this ad where he spoke the whole thing in spanish. listen. (president speaking spanish) >> never heard the president speak spanish before. >> pelley: sounded like his voice. i think that may have been him. cbs news coverage of campaign twelve will continue in -- 2012 will continue in just a moment.

ers are weighing good evening. i'm dana king. >> caller: and i'm ken bastida. california voters weighing in on quite a few statewide measures today from taxes to the death penalty to the power of the unions. >> and also before voters, something that may change the way we shop for groceries. elizabeth cook is looking at prop 37. liz. >> reporter: dana, a little more than a month ago prop 37 was leading in the polls by 60%. today it has become one of the tightest races in this election. it has to do with putting a little label on foods that contain genetically modified ingredients. here in san no they you -- san mateo, some folks have mixed feelings. some say they have a right to know what is in their foods and others fare the raising of

prices. they have spent $37 million on big campaigns and of course the ads on the airwaves in the last couple of weeks. if it passes, california would join the list of over 60 countries that require gmo labelling. live in san mateo, elizabeth cook, cbs 5 thank you. are the national trends like to impact some key issues here in california? we left some analysis on that coming up next. ,,,,,,,,

we left some analysis on that coming up next. y california voters are several states are voting on labor issues today. >> that is right. now the nation feels about them could be an indication how california voters are leaning on props 30 and 32. political reporter grace lee here to explain. grace. >> that is right. unions have been a huge supporters of the governor's education initiative and opposed prop 32, which prohibits payroll deductions for politics. joe is taking the temperature of

the nation to see if we can draw any hints. >> thank you. michigan, illinois, iowa and new hampshire are important states to the governor and the president. it is a union sponsored measure to guarantee lettive bargaining -- collective bargaining rights. that measure is going to defeat, which is suggesting even in the states friendly to the president, the unions aren't as strong as they might be. we will see if that happens in california. >> that is the indication from joe. thank you. ken and dana. thank you. and we will be back in 25 minutes with more local election coverage. >> now back to cbs news and the latest coming from the other states and scott.

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>> pelley: headline of the hour in the presidential race, no projected winners yet in any of the battleground states will that will tip the balance to either president obama or mitt romney. but, cbs news estimates that three of them-- ohio, wisconsin, and new hampshire-- are leaning toward mr. obama. and we project that the president has won pennsylvania. in the electoral vote count, governor romney has a small lead. let's look at the presidential race as it stands at this moment. 270 electoral votes needed to win. president obama right now with 143, mitt romney with 153. mr. romney's states in red, mr. obama's states in blue. the white states are states where the polls have closed and we just don't have enough information yet on which to base

a projection. the states in gray are those where the voting continues. now, we've been talking all night long about the battleground states, these nine states that could go either way and will ultimately tip the balance tonight for one candidate or the other. let's have a look at the tabulated vote in those states. the largest of them all with 29 electoral votes, state of florida, 81% of the vote has been counted and have a look at that! seven million votes cast and about one thousand votes difference between the two. now, cbs news projects breaking news of the moment, president obama we project will carry the state of wisconsin. and its ten electoral votes. let's have a look at the race map now on the presidential race. this is how it has changed. mr. obama and mr. romney now

tied in the electoral vote race to 270 with wisconsin now in the president's column. so we were looking at the swing states, those battleground states that could go either way and we were looking at those tabulated votes. the state of florida, we were just showing you, is nearly tied with 282% of the vote counted. let's look at the second-largest of those swing states, the state of ohio. 36% of the vote has been counted. mr. obama out to an early lead. north carolina also very close. 75% of the vote has been counted in north carolina. a hard fought state. the unemployment rate there is still 9.6%, well over the national average. mitt romney with a lead there in north carolina. looking at the state of virginia, 52% of the vote in

virginia has been counted. mitt romney out with a lead there. we have breaking news. president obama cbs news projects will carry the state of new hampshire. this is the first of the swing states, the nine battleground states that will decide this election. this is the first one that has come through for us tonight. president obama we project will carry the state of new hampshire. let's go to the presidential race map yet again now that new hampshire is in the president's column he has 156 electoral votes to mitt romney's 153. john dickerson, our cbs news political director, is mapping out the various ways the two candidates can get to the 270 electoral votes needed. john, what does this mean now that new hampshire has gone the president's way. >> now that we've actually

called a battleground state let's step back a minute and remind ourselves of why we started at 237 electoral votes for president obama. that's tallying up the states that traditionally go for democrats. 191 electoral votes for governor romney. so now if we give the four electoral votes to president obama, that shrinking governor romney's chances to get to that 270 number from -- he had 76 chances when this began, he now has 30. if we take the states that we have said are leaning distinct from having made a call as we have in new hampshire that would be ohio, wisconsin, and then -- and that would get him to 269 which would be a tie and so the president is -- mitt romney's chances are shrinking fast. >> pelley: john, thank you very much. two of the battleground states that are going to tip the balance tonight have now gone to the president in our cbs news

projections. chip reid is in madison, wisconsin, tonight. chip? >> well, scott, there was just a big cheer that erupted at this bar/restaurant, the old-fashioned in madison, wisconsin. this is a university town in addition to being the capital of wisconsin so you get a youngish crowd, it is a stronghold for the democrats and for president obama. the obama campaign says they got a huge turnout here today. they also got a huge turnout in milwaukee. they were counting on both of those places but the republicans i -- just before we call wisconsin i was on the phone with the republicans, they said they got a huge turnout in the suburban communities around milwaukee and so they were very optimistic but obviously it wasn't big enough. republicans thought with the combination of paul ryan and that titanic bat that will so fired up republicans earlier this year when democrats tried to remove the republican governor from office they thought those two things might

give them enough of an edge to win here. both sides have massive, tens of thousands of volunteers out there getting people to the poll bus obviously for the republicans it was not enough. scott? >> pelley: chip, thank you very much. bob schieffer, norah o'donnell, if the president won florida at this point the election would be over. >> well, he could win a number of things right now and it would be over. i think what we want to emphasize, it's early but is looking much more difficult right now for mitt romney to win the presidency than it did, say, a half hour ago. >> pelley: there are only about nine combinations of states that mitt romney could win with at this point, norah. >> that's right. he needs more than just north carolina which he's leaning in at this hour. he needs florida, ohio, and other states on top of that. now with new hampshire called and wisconsin called it's a much more narrow path to victory for romney. >> pelley: . >> and don't forget we've got ohio now leaning toward barack obama. i mean, if -- if the president

wins ohio, i think it's virtually impossible for mitt romney. >> pelley: we've been talking to voters in these states all day long as they left their polling places and anthony mason has been keeping up with the exit polling information. anthony, what do the voters tell us? >> scott, let's look at our battleground board right now because we have two states that we've called here. we've moved new hampshire and wisconsin, we have projected president obama winning those two states. we have state t state of ohio as bob mentioned leaning towards president obama and there are four states still up in the tossup column with two others where we're waiting for the polls to close. but we want to look at wisconsin which we just projected for president obama and why he won there. let's look first of all, young voters, he won overwhelmingly among young voters, 60% to 36%. they make up about 20% of the electorate in wisconsin. he also won independents narrowly, 49% to 47%. he did much better among independents in wisconsin four years ago when he took 59% but

he hangs on to win them this time. finally he wins union households by two-thirds, 67% to 32%. this is also 21% of the electorate in wisconsin so a sizable voting block. this is the intkpwraoeud kwrepbts of obama's victory in wisconsin right now. scott? >> pelley: nancy cordes is with the obama campaign in chicago tonight. nancy, how are they seeing all this? >> scott, it's interesting, a few hours ago before we started seeing results i was speaking to an obama campaign official and he told me wisconsin isn't going to be as close as people think and sure enough it's one of the first states, first battleground states we're calling this evening. new hampshire more of a surprise for them that it's coming in on their side so early this evening. the key behind their victory in wisconsin besides the fact that it typically trends democratic is the fact that the president spoke so much about manufacturing out on the campaign trail. he talked about it in his convention speech, that was no accident. those kinds of messages are

targeted towards voters in wisconsin, voters in ohio where the obama campaign also feels very comfortable this evening. they say they're looking at the numbers and they won by about by about 2,000 or more voters in the early vote in ohio according to the data they are looking at. they always knew they had a big lead in ohio when it comes to early voting. republicans tend to come out in bigger numbers on election day but they that they think that's going to be a very difficult number, scott, for republicans to overcome. >> pelley: jan crawford is with the romney campaign in boston and, jan, mr. romney has about nine combinations of states that he can still rely on to win the election tonight but his options are getting narrower? >> well, certainly with the addition of new hampshire and wisconsin now projected for the president, that will make it more difficult for romney and those were two states that he really made a play for. remember, he announced his campaign in new hampshire and held his very last rally of this

campaign in new hampshire hoping he could turn that campaign to his map and then, of course, wisconsin, that was not a state that was considered optimistic shot for republicans. until he nominated paul ryan, the wisconsin boy from jaynesville. they thought they got a lot of momentum in wisconsin after that, they thought they put that state back in play and that he could have a shot to win wisconsin as well so now of course it's looking like we've said for months. it's all about ohio and the numbers there, the turnout there for republicans in ohio is very high the campaign continues to be encouraged by that. they're hoping it's off in cleveland, an area that will be very strong for the president and on early voting even though the president has the lead nancy mentioned they believe that they've closed the margins enough that they will be able to make that turnout on election day because the turnout is so large in republican areas in the western part of the state and they think they'll have a big turnout in southeastern ohio

but, of course, now the campaign's focus will be on ohio with the loss of new hampshire and wisconsin. >> pelley: we have breaking news on one of the senate races that we've been watching tonight. cbs news projects that elizabeth warren, the democrat, will pick up the senate seat in the state of massachusetts we are projecting she has defeated scott brown, the republican. you may recall that brown won the seat of ted kennedy in 2010 and has stood for reelection now and has been defeated by elizabeth warren. this is a pickup for the democrats. republicans were hoping to win four more seats than they started with to take control of the senate chamber but now the democrats have picked up one more seat than they had at the beginning of the evening. byron pitts is following the senate races for us. byron? >> scott, this was the most closely watched senate race of

the season and the second most expensive with virginia. with this pickup for democrats in the senate the window isn't closed yet for republicans but the shades come down. in massachusetts, the senate seat there goes to democrat elizabeth warren. she defeats moderate republican senator scott brown. this was always going to be a tough race for brown because of the way voters break down in massachusetts. 52% of voters in massachusetts say they're independent. 36% say they're democrats. and just 12%. a small number, say they're republicans. because of that small figure of g.o.p. voters in massachusetts, republicans told us that scott brown had to win 20% of the vote tonight in order to win. but look at our exit poll. brown only got 11% of democratic voters in massachusetts, elizabeth warren got 89%. so the harvard law professor and former member of the obama administration has won the senate seat in massachusetts. scott, she heads to washington as the first female senator from

massachusetts. she get there is in january. >> pelley: byron, thanks very much. a big pickup for the democrats, bob. >> yes, it was. and this is massachusetts reverting to form. i mean, this was ted kennedy's seat when scott brown got elected. he said no, it's th people's se. and that's right but this is a seat that's been democrat for a long, long time. i think it will be all but impossible for republicans to get control of the senate. i think it's going to stay like it is, in democratic hands. >> pelley: bob, thank you very much. we're going to catch you up on the presidential race map as it stands at this moment. president obama with 157 electoral votes, mr. romney with 153. you see there's state there is in red for romney, blue for obama the white states we don't have enough information on in order to make a projection. the gray states are still voting. cbs news coverage of election night 2012 will continue in just a moment. ♪

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...but i'm a woman. maybe it's a misprint. does it look like a misprint? ok. what i was trying... [ voice of dennis ] silence. ♪ ask an allstate agent about the safe driving bonus check. are you in good hands? >> pelley: let's catch you up on the presidential race as it stands at this moment. 270 electoral votes needed to win. mr. obama with 157 now, mr. romney with 153. mr. romney's states in red, mr. obama's in blue. the white states are those where the polls have closed but we do not have enough information in order to make a projection. the states in gray are the states that are still voting. we just got a photograph into the newsroom a short while ago of mr. romney watching the vote returns tonight. this is in boston. he's with his grandchildren there. so this is the romney family

watching the vote returns as they're coming in. we now have a new cbs news projection, cbs news is projecting that senator sherrod brown will retain his seat in the senate from the state of ohio. this is a seat the democrats had, sherrod brown will return to the senate in the state of ohio as their united states senator. there are nine battleground states tonight, we have called two of them. we have projected that two of them have gone into the column of president obama, new hampshire, and wisconsin, but that leaves the rest of the battleground states still unprojected at this point. don't have enough information in order to tell you which way they are going. but let's have a look at the colorado tabulated vote as it stands right now. almost half of the vote has been counted. the president has a slight lead

over governor romney with still more than half of our vote yet to be counted. our man in colorado is barry petersen. barry, colorado used to be a reliably republican state but not so much anymore. >> things here have changed, scott. i think you see a larger hispanic vote, about 11% this time out and you see an influx of younger people and people from california who have come here and they have changed the complexion of this state. it's now a very purple state. a third democratic, a third republican and this county where i am a third independent. we're here in arapaho which is south of denver, one of the swingiest of the swing counties. you can see behind me they're counting ballots. they're counting ballots that have already been mailed in. that's the numbers we're working on now. this is a big mail in early vote, early state here in arapaho, county. about 68% people mailed in before voting started today. now this is a state that was concerned about voting problems but it didn't turn out that way.

because so many people voted early, the polling places were able to handle people who showed up. one area where they had a 90 minute, two hour wait and they said to people look if you change precincts you can go next door and you can vote in five minutes. that said, now this state is really beginning to count the votes that were cast today. about a third of the votes. and it could be a while here in arapaho county where they are counting the votes that have come in early. they are prepared to work late into the night, scott, i am telling you, bad news for all of us. they have another shift ready to come on duty at 11:00 p.m. and count the night away. >> reporter: barry, thank you very much. i think back on that very first presidential debate it was in colorado. that was the debate that mitt romney won, the president had done poorly and mitt romney convinced people to take a second look now they're battling it out for colorado. >> i think that was one of the

shift wes saw here. we saw a shift toward barack obama after the democratic convention and after that republican convention, that sort of stop for a while and we saw it starting to shift toward mitt romney the question is was it still going up until election day or did it peak a day or two before? we haven't had much good news for governor romney in the last hour, but here is one little bit of good news on colorado. is there are 38% of the vote out there are independents and according to our exit polling governor romney is leading among independents by seven points now. >> pelley: the unemployment rate in colorado is 8%, just slightly above the national average. >> colorado is a state that has changed a lot which is why it went democratic in the last election. there are more hispanics in that state, more college educated whites that had gone into colorado and we talked about those are coalitions of the ascendant, growing demographic groups part of obama's

coalition. however, even though there was a large early vote in colorado, some 77% that turned out early-- amazing, before election day-- many people i talked to said this was going to be a good state for mitt romney. that's the one battleground state he was ahead in the early vote. >> pelley: colorado now about 21% hispanic and those votes breaking the president's way. cbs news coverage of campaign 2012 continues in just a moment.

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[ tylenol bottle ] me too! and nasal congestion. [ tissue box ] he said nasal congestion. yeah...i heard him. [ female announcer ] tylenol® cold multi-symptom nighttime relieves nasal congestion. nyquil® cold and flu doesn't. but first you've got to get him to say, "hello." new crest 3d white arctic fresh toothpaste. use it with these 3d white products, and whiten your teeth in just 2 days. new crest 3d white toothpaste. life opens up when you do. >> pelley: it's election night on cbs. let's catch you up on the presidential race as it stands at this moment. this is the presidential race map, 270 electoral votes needed to win. obama has 157, romney has 153. but look at this: this is the popular vote tonight. as it's being tabulated, mitt romney ahead in the popular vote even though he's falling behind,

bob schieffer, in the electoral vote. >> yes, but the electoral vote is where it is. we thought at the beginning of the night that barack obama would win 237 electoral votes. we thought that was all but certain. he has now picked up 14 more with new hampshire and wisconsin. that puts him at 251, ohio is leaning toward obama. if ohio goes for obama he will have-- if we give him what we thought he would have at the beginning of the evening-- 269 electoral votes-- one vote short of what he needs. >> pelley: bob, thanks very much. cbs news coverage of election night 2012 will continue after this.

politics is in the hands of politics is in the hands of night: the good evening. one of the hot button issues in politics is in the hands of california voters tonight -- the death penalty. >> linda yee has more on prop 34 and a surprising supporter of it. linda? >> reporter: well, ken and dana, that's absolutely right. just in the last week we've seen a surprising switch on how people feel, more people, the polls show, they support it. if passed, it will abolish the death penalty here in california. the question is if it passes tonight, what happens to all of those 727 death row inmates now? they will immediately be changed to life in prison without parole. what happens to notorious prisoners like scott peterson who killed his wife and unborn child? he's been on death row.

there's also richard allen davis, accused of killing and kidnapping pauly klaas of petaluma and then there's notorious richard ramirez, known as the night stalker. he went on a sexual assault and murderous rampage in california in the '80s. these are the people who will be moved out of death row but it's still questionable about where they will go in the prison sentence. i did speak to jean woodard, a former san quentin warden, and oversaw four executions. she has a reason why she thinks it will pass now. >> and then 75 more had their sentences overturned after years of sitting on death row and years of wasteful spending on appeals. really do we want to spend our criminal justice dollars in that way or do we want to use that money for improves lives for all californians? >> reporter: human right organizations support it but a

lot of law enforcement agencies do not. reporting live at the yes on prop 34 party, linda yee cbs5. >> linda, thank you for that. we'll be right back. we',, kzo

we're live here in san jose at the south bay labor council where about 50 people are phone banking. calling people as we head into the fine ral stretch of election day. they are simply calling people reminding them to vote. i want to take a moment to talk about measure-d. the council says they say the more who vote, the more the minimum wage goes up. >> thank you, ken. we'll be back in 25 minutes with more election coverage. right now we're going back to cbs news. ,,,,,,,,

>> . >> cbs news election night coverage continues. here again is scott pelley. >> pelley: the polls are now closed in all of the battleground states that will tip the balance tonight in the presidential race. and two of them have tipped right into president obama's column. wisconsin and new hampshire. in addition, ohio and nevada are leaning toward the president. the vote count in the biggest of the swing states, florida, is oh so close. mr. obama only has to win florida now to win re-election. in the battle for the senate the republicans lose a key seat in massachusetts. we project that elizabeth warren has defeated the incumbent republican scott brown in massachusetts. mitt romney has a small lead in the electoral vote count, both candidates are still far away from the 270 needed

to win. let's have a look at the way the presidential vote map stands right at this moment. mr. obama with 157 electoral votes, mr. o romney with 162. mr. romney's states are in red, mr. obama's in blue. the states that are in white are those that we just do not have enough information yet in order to make a projection of a winner. the states in gray are still voting. let's have a look at some of the new states that have just been picked up by governor romney. governor romney wins in utah. no surprise there. governor romney, we also project, picks up the state of montana. now the battleground states. we started this night with nine states that were too close to call. they could go in either direction. they will certainly tip the balance for one candidate or the other tonight. two of the battleground states have gone to president obama, new hampshire and wisconsin. the others we still do not have enough information yet

in which to make a call. now we have just decided to lean the state of nevada toward president obama. that is based on our exit polling information. anthony mason is keeping up with our exit polling information as it came in from all of the states. anthony, tell us which way things are leaning. >> reporter: well, scott, let's look at the battleground board here. as you mentioned the state of nevada and its six electoral votes now moving out of the toss-up column and into the lean obama column alongside ohio, as we've been saying all night. our election desk says that means the president has a slight advantage in those states. but there's still the possibility they coleen back. nevada is particularly interesting because the unemployment rate in nevada is 11.8%, nearly 4 points above the national average. the economy in enormous distress there and has been for some time. but when we ask voters in our exit poll who would do a better job of handling the economy, came out about even,

actually. now it's interesting because among the nevada voters in our exit poll, we asked them about obama's policies and who they would favor, most said obama's policies would favor the middle class, 45%. 10% said the rich, 29% the poor. asked the same question about governor romney you get a very different response. 55% said romney's policies would favor the rich. again we have moved nevada out of the toss-up column and into the lean obama column at this hour, scott. >> pelley: thank you, anthony, nora o'donnell, nevada once republican as it could be, one of the states with the absolute worst economies in the country, what's going on there? why leaning for the president now? >> it has to do with the large hispanic population in nevada. we saw in 2008 it was 15%, and our exit poll now show it is 18% and they are breaking overwhelmingly for obama, 68 to 25.

a lot of those democratic growth in clark county in nevada, that is part of the reason that the president is doing well in the state of nevada. also another one of these states where there was a lot of early voting, 72% voted before election day. and so that's where the unions tried to turn the culinary workers union, that work in all the hotels when we visit las vegas and other places, they got those people to the polls early out. romney in order to win that state was going to have to get a heavy republican turnout on election day. >> pelley: bob, one of the swing states we haven't talked a lot about tonight is the state of iowa, what are you seeing there? >> schieffer: well, iowa is one of those states that as this race began to close, the obama people began to be more and more confident about it. they told us this week they thought they were up by 7 or 8 points. we're looking at these exit polls, 54% of the voters in iowa are women. 46% are men. women are up 19 points over

governor romney. president obama is winning the women's vote in iowa. governor romney seems to be losing among all age groups except seniors. he is now tied with president obama on that. but again going back, it looks to me like now if president obama gets all of the states that we thought in the beginning of the evening he was going to win, now that he has won wisconsin and new hampshire, if the two states that are leaning to him, nevada and ohio go to president obama, he's going to be re-elected. norah? >> reporter: we have been talking about the minority vote and how it breaks overwhelmingly for the president and the white vote usually break force mitt romney. iowa is a state very white, 93% white slowers, very few minorities in that state. and according to our exit polls obama is actually winning in that state. obama, it was his last stop,

campaign stop there. we saw him crying in iowa because it was the state that launched his presidency, where he beat hillary clinton in those caucuses all the way back in 2008. >> schieffer: that's when we started taking him seriously for the first time, when we won iowa, when an african-american could go to iowa an win, people said wait a minute this guy might be somebody who's going to win. >> pelley: and the unemployment rate in iowa right now is 5.2%, way down from the national average. and the farm economy has been doing quite well. >> schieffer: the obama people were feeling very, very good about iowa all this week. >> pelley: we now have breaking news with a couple of projections in the senate races in the state of missouri. cbs news is projecting that senator claire mccass kel will hold her seat in the state of missouri. in the state of indiana which are showing that our projection is that joe donnelly, the democrat will pick up the seat in indiana.

republicans were hoping to pick up some seats tonight but so far it looks like the democrats are doing a better job of adding seats in the senate. byron pitts has been following the senate races for us, byron? >> reporter: scott, you're absolutely right. indiana, missouri are two places that the republicans thought back in january they could win easily. that's not been the case tonight. first indiana where you have congressman democrat joe donnelly defeat republican tea party-backed candidate richard murdoch. mourdock won the primary in an upset of senator rep-- republican senator richard lugar the moderate. expectations were if lugar could have won the primary he very easily would have won re-election. but mourdock won the primary. since then he has had some challenges. in a recent debate with donnelly he said if rape leads to pregnancy, then quote, it's god's will. that comment likely hurt him with moderates and republican-- moderates and women in that state. now over in missouri republicans thought back in

january this would be their easiest pick up. but tonight it looks like democrat senator claire mccasskel will win, she defeats todd aken. the republicans thought this was an easy win. but then todd akin made his comment, what he called legitimate rape. and his campaign never recovered. scott, we can look at our senate chamber again for a second. so remember republicans going into this evening needed to win four seats to take back control of the senate. so far they haven't won anywhere and the democrats have a net pickup of two. at this point it looks very, very difficult for the republicans to win control of the senate at this point, scott. >> pelley: byron, thank you very much. we have a bulletin, cbs news is projecting that mitt romney will carry the state of missouri. this adds 10 electoral votes to his column. this is the presidential race map as it stands right now. with those ten electoral

vote mrs. romney goes to 173, mr. obama to 157. reminding you, of course, that it takes 270 electoral votes to win the presidency. bob schieffer, interesting information on the senate races. that the democrats have been able to hang on to. >> schieffer: what is really kind of interesting about it is that when you look back at the seats that the republicans lost tonight, connecticut, linda mcmahon was the-- she basically bought herself the nomination. she spent $100 million over the last two election cycles trying to get elected and she didn't. probably if chris shays, a republican kind of a liberal republican congressman in connecticut, if he had won the nomination, he probably would have won that seat. certainly he would have been competitive. there is no question that if dick lugar who had lost that nomination the long time senator in indiana, had he

won the nomination there, it would have been a runnaway for him. he would have won and then down there in missouri you had akin who again was a very conservative on social issues candidate, a stronger republican there, might well have beaten claire mccasskel because she was very vul neverable in a state that went republican. >> pelley: a bit of the tea party hangover in those races. the tea party candidates were nominated. and ultimately-- defeated. >> schieffer: they make very good candidates in republican primaries but didn't fair that well in general elections. >> pelley: let's switch to chicago where we have the mayor of chicago rahm emmanuel and the former chief of staff for president obama, mr. mayor, thank you very much for joining us. we have shown new hampshire and wisconsin now pick up by the president in terms of the swing states. how do you see things moving. >> well, to be blunt, i

would be rather be us than them right now. there's a lot to go yet in ohio and florida, and in virginia and iowa. but in ohio and iowa come in like they're coming, i think you have a very good night for the president of the united states. as we say here in chicago, sweet home, chicago. so it will be a great night. >> pelley: mr. mayor, the turnout has been extremely heavy in a number of states, in florida in particular, and in virginia. they've had to keep the polls open past their closing time because so many people were standing in line. does that break for the president or break for mitt romney. >> let me say this, for a lot of people for the year saying the energy wasn't there for the president's voters i think they should take a step back and say why were they saying that. if anything we're seeing an intensity that's very good for the president. and you're seeing long lines in key areas that are tle strong for the president. so i think it's a good sign, first of all, for the country overall that a lot of people decided to turn out to vote. because it's a big election.

but if you look at where the votes are, there's a lot of energy on the president's side, and for everybody for the last 12 months that was saying it's not like '08, it's like '08. they're as excited today about the president as they were back there '08. and that's a very good sign i think for his presidency and the tough issues that he has to tackle in the next four years. he's got a firm hold on a part of the country that really wants to see his leadership and that he's exerted for the last four years continue down the path of policies that he has. so i think it's good. and although we have a long night to g we're going to be watching a lot for florida, virginia, ohio and iowa. >> pelley: rahm emmanuel, mayor of the city of chicago and former chief of staff to president obama. thank you very much for being with us. >> thank you. >> pelley: and cbs news coverage of this election night 2012 will continue in just a moment. [ male announcer ] whether it's kevin's smartphone...

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>> pelley: breaking news of the hour, the cbs news election desk has decided to lean iowa in the direction of president obama. anthony mason has been following our exit polling information all night based on that exit polling information. we've decided to move iowa into the lean obama come, anthony. >> reporter: that's right, scott. iowa and it's six electoral votes comes out of the toss-up column into the lean obama column alongside ohio and nevada. as we've said all night long and in view of our election desk that means the president has the slight lead in the state. there is still the possibility it coleen back. but nevada leaning towards the president and a big reason why are women voters in iowa. among all women the president leads 59 to 40%. he's doing even better among single women taking 71%. and he's leading among married women as well, 53 to

47%. white women, that's forecategory that across the country the president is to the doing well with. he's only getting 42% nationally among white women but he's winning them in iowa. we don't know the reason why, specifically, but he's got 58% of white women in iowa. but again, scott, our headline iowa six electoral votes now leaning to president obama. >> pelley: anthony, thank you. norah, ohio-- rather, iowa is a swing state in every sense of the word and it looks like white with swinging it toward the president tonight. >> that's exactly right. and this is a defeat for the republicans. because iowa, there is actually more registered republicans in iowa than there are democrats. there's a lot of christian evangelicals in the state of iowa. it is 93% white. but this is a state that barack obama launched his candidacy and they never stopped organizing in that state. i mean you can look at the number of field offices. obama has 67 field offices. romney has 14. obama's people say if there was a place they were organized early and stayed t was iowa. it paid off.

it's not the typical type of state that goes for barack obama. >> pelley: now john dickerson has been following the various ways each candidate can get to the 270 electoral votes needed to win. john, how have these recent changes changed the map? >> well, they've shrunk the possibility for governor romney with wisconsin and new hampshire off the map for him. now with iowa leaning, if we give that to the president and then nevada leaning and ohio leaning, that gets president obama up to 281 electoral votes. so if we add the leaning to the ones that are called, then that's it for governor romney. >> pelley: now of course we are, to emphasize we are saying that these states are leaning toward the president. the votes are still being counted. they coleen back the other way. it's still possible. we are not making a cbs news projection on those states yet. but we will project those

states based on our exit polling information and the tabulated vote at the very moment that we are able to have confidence in that projection. dean reynolds is our man in ohio, also one of the major swing states tonight, second largest of them all in terms of electoral votes. and a state that we are unable to project because we do not have enough information yet. dean? >> well, scott, we're getting some indications from the demeanor of the republicans that we've spoken to, the press secretary for the republican party here in ohio, matt henderson told thaws they are a little nervous about the results. there is-- they're still waiting for the rural counties. but if you read between the lines of what they're saying, there does seem to be considerable anxiety about what they're seeing out there in the numbers. we talked to a high government official here in

ohio who agreed with our assessment that ohio is leaning. they would have liked to have seen the early votes break a little bit more friendly to governor romney. they see that about 60% of them went to the president. they were hoping that maybe they could hold that number down to 56%. so they're not saying that ohio has been lost to governor romney but they are indicating that this is not particularly a great night for them, scott. >> pelley: dean, thank you very much. breaking news of the moment. we can now make a cbs news projection on the senate race in virginia. cbs news is projecting that timothy cane, former governor there will be the senator. he is the democrat and another democratic seat in the senate tonight. now looking at the two largest swing states that we have not been able to make projections on yet, the state of ohio, 55% of the vote has been counted.

mr. obama has a slender lead over mitt romney in ohio. a lot of counting yet to go. not enough information yet in order to make a projection. now let's look at the largest swing state of all, the state of florida, 29 electoral votes. 87% of the vote has been counted and have a look at that. 1%-- 1 percentage point between the two. if president obama wins florida at this point, the election is over. but clearly a hard fought race there in florida tonight. cbs news coverage of election night 2012 will continue in just a moment. [ female announcer ] lactaid milk is easy to digest. it's real milk full of calcium and vitamin d. and tastes simply delicious.

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the hour. we told you a few minutes ago that the cbs news election desk what estimated that nevada, critical swing state, was leaning toward president obama. we are now upping the ante on that saying that it is now likely to go to president obama. the state of nevada. we're not making that projectioning yet of a winner but we believe it is likely that the president will win that state. anna western certificate in nevada tonight, anna? >> reporter: well, scott, you've seen an influx of hispanics into nevada in recent years, along with other minority group, african-americans and asians. but the latino vote is now roughly 15% of the total. and it's considered critical here. it's also part of the democratic get out the vote campaign here which has resulted in 9 o-- 90,000 more registered democrats than republicans. we just talked to secretary of state ross miller and he expects results will start being released here in the next 20 minutes or so.

he said they have had no major problems here. but he said that the influx of hispanicsnd minorities here has made a big difference on the ground here. so we can be watching that as we continue to watch the results come in here. and he says they've had no major problems, no long lines and he expects they should be able to begin releasing those results say in the next 15 or 20 minutes here, scott. >> thank you, so cbs news estimating that nevada is now likely to go to president obama if. if that is the case, that will leave mitt romney with only three combinations of states left that could get him to the 270 necessary in order to win the presidency. you're watching ccbs news coverage of election night 2012.

just about 30 minutes left l the polls close and people e still voting around the bay area. so much at stake --not just nationally -- but important races statewide, d >> 30 minutes left and people are still voting around the bay area. no much at stake not yuck nationally but statewide races in the bay area. now, one of the nastyist races, the san jose city council race. lynn has more. >> reporter: we are in san jose. election workers are collecting ballots. important local elections in san jose, the district 8 council race has a little bit of everything, allegations of sign stealing and as well as very negative campaign ads that were financed by the police and

fire unions who want to unseat herrera because of her support of pension reform in san jose. reporting live in san jose, c bs five. a first in the nation, a soa -- soda tax coming up next.

joe vosca is watching things at the democratic party location in san francisco. picking up there, joe? >> it is. a lot of people here right now and i would have to describe it at nervous excitement. these folk are making phone calls not just around california but the country trying to drive out the vote. joining me right now is penney kelly. he has been with the democratic party a long time here. in a word or phrase, how are you feeling right now as the swing states start to swing

towards obama. >> good for obama, good for america, good for the working class. it is extremely important we are fighting for our lives here and survival. >> prop 30 and 32, the key ones. >> california, 30 and 32 will help us if we beat 32 and we get 30, our children will get a much better education and working people will be able to get involved in politics. and elections could not be bought. >> thank you so much for taking the time. a lot of passion here at democratic party headquarters, we will be monitoring it all night. >> a lot of time to vote, more than a half hour. we'll be back in 25 minutes with more local election coverage. >> now we will go back to news news and scott peley in new

york. election nate coverage continues. here

>> w t re moving, scott, in the way that we anticipated. we have been saying this for some time. the president's message is a winning message in these states. americans want an economy in which the middle class is thriving again. and they want to make those investments necessary to have that happen. they want to deal with these

deficits but in a responsible way, asking the wealthy to pay a little more. that's been a winning message for the president. as has been his record. if you look at a state like ohio and the role the auto bailout played in the revival of the economy of that state, very important in tonight's vote. and then there's the matter that norah took up, the president has been a champion of finding a solution to issues like immigration and governor romney took a very, very right position on that. way out of the mainstream, on issues like women's health, took positions way out of the mainstream. you see a big gender gap tonight. so these states are moving in the way that we thought they would. it's too early to call them. but we like the patterns it that we see in these states. >> pelley: let me just take a short pause in our interview, mr. axelrod, bear with me one second while cbs new pos projects that mitt romney will carry the state of arizona, no great surprise there.

but mitt romney, cbs news now projects will carry arizona and its 11 electoral votes. now swinging back to david axelrod in chicago. you know, you are a veteran of two obama campaigns now. you were one of the architects of the 2008 campaign. i wonder, how was this campaign different from the president's first campaign? >> well, obviously it's different because the country has come through a difficult time. and we have done that together. and that changes the nature of the race to some degree via the advent of super pacs and the torrent of money that was spent against the president changed the race in certain ways. but as i look around tonight at these young people, who are very happy right now, i see the same sense of idealism that drove them to be involved in that 2008 campaign. they understand that we can do things together to build a better future, to build a better country, to change the course of matters in ways that are going to

benefit the large number of americans. and that's what they want to be a part of. and it's a real pleasure to be a part of this. so this is a very joyful night here tonight. >> pelley: you know, mr. axelrod, i couldn't help but notice all the people in the room behind you are throwing on their coats and leaving at a pretty good clip. where is everybody going? >>. >> i don't know, maybe they're trying to sneak out while i'm talking to you. i have got to check on that. but i think that we're going to begin moving people because we've got a lot of traffic to move before, you know, anything happens next. we've got another event going on over at mccormick place. but we've got some matters to settle before we switch over there. >> pelley: mccormick place the site at what you hope will be a victory party tonight. >> yes, sir, yes, sir. we're hopeful. >> pinkston: you have-- . >> pelley: you have been with the president for a long time, you have worked at the white house. i wonder if the president is re-elected tonight, how will the next four years be

different from the last four? >> well, they will be different in one major way which is when he came to office the country was in an economic disaster. we were loss 800,000 jobs a month, we were mired in two wars. he's done a lot to change that. we're out of iraq, we're ending the war in afghanistan and the economy now is producing jobs instead of losing jobs. so there is a foundation now on which we can build. and i think that's an opportunity for great things in the next four years. and i think the verdict that voters render today should they hold up and should the president be re-elected will be heard not just by democrats but by republicans. people want us to work together to solve the problems of this country, to meet the great challenges and grab the opportunities of the future. and that's very much what the president is focused on. >> pelley: david axelrod one of the architects of the president's first campaign, thank you for joining us from chicago. >> thanks for having me, scott. >> pelley: want to emphasize that it's not over until it's over.

and it is certainly not over yet. things have been leaning toward the president but a lot of counting left to do. state of ohio is still out. state of florida is still out. a lot of things can happen. and this is the presidental race as it stands at this moment. in fact, mitt romney is in the lead with 184 electoral votes, we just added the 11 electoral votes from the state of arizona which we projected for mitt romney during that interview with david axelrod. the president has 167 electoral votes. you see the president's states in blue, mr. romney's in red. the white states are those where we don't have enough information yet to make a projection, the gray states are still voting. and of course as we remind you often, it takes 270 electoral votes to win. so a good distance to go yet. now we have had hundreds of interviewers for cbs news all across the country talking to voters in every state all day long, asking

them how they voted and why they voted the way that they did and anthony mason has been compiling all of that information for us. and anthony what are the voters telling us tonight. >> let's start by reviewing the nine swing states in our battleground board at this hour. florida, north carolina, virginia, all still toss-ups, ohio, iowa leaning toward the president, nevada over here likely forthe president. wisconsin and new hampshire projected for the president. if the economy was the number one issue, voters told us second most importants health care. and nearly half, 49% said they want to repeal all or some of the president's affordable care act. that of course is his health care legislation there has also been an interesting shift in the attitude toward government. four years ago more than half the voters we talked to, 51% said government should do more. this time around that number has dropped to 43%. not a good sign for the president. there is a bright spot for the president though, when asked who would do a better job handling medicare, 52%

said president obama, just 45 percent for governor romney. now a lot of people thought the health-care issue would cut only against the president. these numbers suggest it's cutting both ways, scott, not quite so clear-cut. >> pelley: anthony, thank you very much. cbs news coverage of election night 2012 will continue in just a moment.

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states where we do not have enough information to make a projection yet. and the gray states are still voting. let's zero in on the state of ohio. state of ohio could very well be the tipping point state tonight, the one that tips the balance for one candidate or the other. we do not have enough information from our exit poll in order to make a projection but look at that, 64% of the vote has been counted. and mr. obama has a very slender lead there in ohio. our correspondent in ohio is january crawford. i shouldn't-- i should say our correspondent with the romney campaign is jan crawford. and jan, i wonder what the romney campaign is telling you about this tight, tight race in ohio. >> well, scott, of course we spent so much time in ohio with that romney campaign it is not surprising you without say we are in ohio. and of course tonight the campaign is looking to this because the map for them has gotten narrow as you have been discussion. and they're refusing to give

up. they're still looking at different data points in that state even though as you pointed out, the turnout for the president, higher in some areas and also of course with some of those early voting going now pretty strong for the president. but they are pointing to areas with strong republican turnout in some parts of the state where they're actually beating some of the margins george bush got, that was the goal. governor romney went there several times, visiting with those coal minors and stressing his energy policy. that sometimes tends to go democrat anything that part of the state it has now become a pretty strong republican area though particularly with the focus on energy. and then of course cincinnati still, just under 300 votes they are left to be count counted and they believe that will go very strong for romney so they are looking for these rays of sunshine right now, they know ohio is all important and some of those signs coming out aren't particularly encouraging but

they are finding-- let's look at florida, the biggest of the swing states, 89% of the vote has been counted. if the president wins florida it is over but florida is far from over. have a look at that. there is about 16,000 votes separating the two candidates. president obama with a slender, slender lead. 50% to 49%, florida, very hard fought. and john dickerson has been following the race for us there. john? >> in florida if you are a democrat are you very happy with the fact that president obama is doing very well with democrats down in the miami dade area. and you're even happier that in hillborough county which has picked the president in every race since 1960 except for one time in 1992, there president obama is up 53 to 46. that's the same percentage he got in 2008. so the question is how is

governor romney staying in the hunt here? why is it so close? well, he's doing well in his counties here. but if you look at these other counties which not his biggest but some of these other red counties, sump ter county is the one i like the best. it has the most seniors in that county, 45%. you see there that governor romney has gotten 67% of the vote, john mccain just got 63% of the vote, not a huge county here. but if you add up enough of those counties, that's how you have such a tight race. >> pelley: john, thank you very much. the decisive moment is coming. we will continue with our cbs news coverage of campaign 2012 in just a moment. everyone in the nicu, all the nurses wanted to watch him when he was there 118 days.

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>> pelley: welcome back to election night on cbs. we break in with any bulletins that we have in the presidential election. but for a moment here let's

turn our attention to the other big theme of the night and that is the united states senate. republicans were very hopeful that they would be able to take control of the senate. they only needed to pick up four seats more than they had in order to take control of the senate tonight. byron pitts has been following the senate races for us. byron, how are the republicans doing? >>. >> reporter: scott, at this hour the window is all but closed now for the republican party and their effort to take control of the senate. look at our map, earlier this evening republicans told us they had to win either massachusetts, connecticut or virginia. they lost all three. in maine independent has won there but expectations are angus king will caucus with the democrats. republicans have lost in indiana, a place they thought they could win. they lost in missouri, a place they thought they could win. at this point republicans virtually have to run the table. they have to win wisconsin, north dakota, montana, hold on to seats in nevada and arizona and win in hawaii. president obama's home state. we are look at our senate

chamber again. to this point the democrats have a net gain of one seat in the senate, that means republicans now have to win five seats to take control of the senate. so scott, it's not over yet. but at this point it's all uphill for the republicans and they're wearing roller skates. >> pelley: bob schieffer, after all of the billions of dollars that have been spent on this election, it seems almost certain now that the republicans will retain control of the house and the democrats will retain control of the senate, nothing changes. >> schieffer: and what makes it so remarkable is think about this it. the approval rating. right now the congress is about as popular as smallpox, you know. their approval rating is down to 6%. and yet republicans are going to keep the house and the democrats are going to keep the senate. >> i don't have anything to add to small pox and going uphill with roller skates. but it is remarkable. we have had three changed

elections in a row, 2006, 2008 and 2010. voters fed up. frustrated with washington. sick of the way politicians do things and up set about the direction of the country. in terms of congress right now it looks like a status quo election where republicans will maintain control of the house and democrats will maintain control of the senate. we'll see what has happened in the presidential race. >> it all goes back though to redistricting and the way these districts are now drawn. it's the incumbent projection-- protection society. once you get these people in there it's all but impossible to get them out if they are able to raise enough money. and if you are an incumbent you have the ability to raise money. and that makes it-- and that's why you see what we are seeing here. >> pelley: so often people say that they hate the congress but they like their congressman so they keep sending the same people back year after year after year. let's have a quick look at the presidential race map here as we catch you up on exactly where ing thises stand at the moment. this is the electoral

college vote. president obama with 167, mitt romney with 184. it is 270 that is necessary to win the presidency. those states in white are those states where the polls have closed, in some cases been closed for hours but we still do not have enough information to project a win never those states. and many of those are the ones that are going to tip the balance for one candidate or the other. the states you see out there in the west in gray are states where people are still voting. cbs news coverage of election night 2012 will continue in just a moment.

some key ground has alreadyn handed to president obama. cbs 5 political reporter gre lee on what trends we're se. grace. we want to focus on new hampshire, wisconsin and pennsylvania. cbs 5 political analyst joe tuman joe. ken, dana - back to you. some early estimates show

voter turnout is lower thant was four years ago. the top voting official in alameda county says lines 't nearly as long as they weren 2008, when 78 percent of ala

county voters cast ballots. and san mateo county's voter registrar says there are fer registered voters in san mao than four years ago. both officials believe voter turt will be anywhere from six to eight percent lower than its in 2008.which was 78%. we'll be right back. ,,,,,,,,

chicago tonight. here - it's all eyes on ohio. at romney campaign headquarters in boston: a lf hope hanging on that very ce count in florida. polls in california close in less than two minutes. as sn as that happens - we will immediately start bringing u those numbers online at cbs-s-f.com. and we're back with those numbers in 25 minutes. now k to cbs news and scott pelle.

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night coverage continues. bulletin, cbs news has now projecting that mitt romney will win north carolina. this is the first of the critical swing states that has gone mitt romney's way, cbs news now projects that mitt romney will carry north carolina and its 15 electoral votes. let's have a look at the presidential race nap now that we moved north carolina in to mitt romney's column. 270 electoral votes necessary to win. president obama has 28, mitt romney -- the president's total has jumped up in this last few minutes because of the polls that have closed out west let's have a look. president obama, cbs news

projects will carry the state of california. no great surprise there. that is the biggest electoral prize in the country, 55 electoral votes in the state of california. state of washington with its 12 electoral votes, cbs news projects that the president will carry washington. also cbs news projects the president will carry his home state of hawaii. and its four electoral votes. let's have a look at where mr. romney is picking up additional electoral votes the state of idaho, polls have just closed there and cbs news projects with confidence that mitt romney will carry the state of idaho and its four electoral votes. let's have a look at those battleground states. there were nine at the beginning of the evening that we told you we would not be able to tell because the states could tip in either direction. these were the states that were going to tell the tale tonight. we now have president obama carrying the state of new hampshire and state of

wisconsin. mitt romney just now cbs news has projected will carry north carolina. the very first of the swing states that he has picked up. state of florida is the biggest swing state of all with 29 electoral votes. and have a look at that, 90% of the vote has been counted in florida. and it is incredibly close there. if the president won florida at this moment the election would be over. but it's not over in florida. 10% of the vote yet to be in the state of ohio, the second-largest of the swing state votes in terms of the electoral vote, about 18 in ohio. 67% of the vote is there. and we have president obama with a slender lead over mitt romney in the state of ohio. let's look quickly at the rest of the battleground states. we can't make projections.

we don't have enough information. but here is the actual tabulated vote in the votes. virginia, 77% of the vote is counted. mitt romney with a slender lead in the state of virginia. state of colorado, 66% of the vote. counted in colorado. the president leading there. and iowa, 43% of the vote has been counted. barack obama with a significant lead in iowa. but still more than half of the vote to count there. at the state of nevada, with its six electoral votes, only 6% has been counted. we now have another bulletin. cbs news is projecting that barack obama will when the state of new mexico. this was expected. but let's have a look at the presidential race map now. we're moving new mexico's five electoral votes to the president. now the president has 243

electoral votes to mitt romney is 200. 270 necessary to win. john dickerson has been our man with a map showing us the various ways the candidates can reach 270. john, where does this leave us? >> we have projected that north carolina will go to mitt romney. it -- that gives him 206 electoral votes but it doesn't change the fact that he has just eight paths to victory. but if you were to take nevada, which we are saying is likely, that could change, but likely to go to barack obama, and then iowa which is leaning toward barack obama and ohio toward barack obama. that gets you 2281 electoral votes for barack obama. while 15 electoral votes go in north carolina, and that is to mitt romney, he has a tough path to get to the 270 number. >> by my count, the president still has 55 ways to reach 270

and mitt romney has eight at this point. so a difficult path for mitt romney. but certainly not over yet. based on the exit poll, and talking to voters all day long, in all of the states as they left the polls, we have made some preliminary judgments about which way some of the swing states are leaning. and those states that are likely to go in one direction or another. anthony mason has been keeping up with that. anthony, what do you have now? >> let's go back to the battleground board at this hour. there are three states still in the tossup column among the nine swing states. florida, virginia and colorado, we have a ohio and iowa leaning to the president. and wisconsin and new hampshire projected for the president. and as you said, it is projected for mitt romney. the economy is a big in -- issue. 9.6% unemployment rate. as you can see, three quarters of the voters said that the family finances are the same or

worse then they were four years ago. the biggest economic concern, number one, rising prices. second, on employment, their taxes. so who would do a better job of handling the economy? by a margin of 51 to 47%, they say mitt romney. again, north carolina called for mitt romney of us are. thank you very much. >> we were in north carolina working on a story. we met a lady who makes wire for tires. and she worked at a factory doing that for 27 years. while we were there, she got a letter saying that the plant was being closed and all 310 workers were being laid off. after all those years. certainly a difficult economic situation in north carolina. >> i think at 9.5% unemployment in north carolina, the other party, from the beginning, the obama people

thought this was be -- this would be the hardest of the battleground states for them to win. early in the evening, when that first wave of exit polling came in, we saw this huge turnout of african americans. that is how barack obama one north carolina the last time. but that turns out there was another turnout of african americans this time. that is why it looked like, early in the evening, that barack obama might pull something of an upset and when that one. but look at this. 56% of women and 44% of men, that is how it breaks out there, governor romney did not do as well among women there. he was only behind two points among women. he did very well among women, much better than he did the last time out. it may very well turn out that what happened to the women's vote there is what turned it for mitt romney. >> that is right. for women, there was not that gender gap that benefits the

candidate. and also the white to vote. there were a lot of blacks that turned out. they went for president obama. but there were 70% being white. as you can see, look at the split. the overwhelmingly break it -- breaking for mitt romney. that means barack obama loss to the white vote in north carolina by 37 points that is a much larger gap than in 200821 the state. >> let's have a look at another one of these swing states. it is a ohio. the second largest of the states. this is the tabulated vote. 68% of the vote has been counted. the president with a slender lead in ohio. our man in ohio is dean reynolds. he has been watching the vote town there. >> scott, we chose this location, the ohio state capitol here in columbus, because we have easy access to the secretary of state's office. the secretary of state is overseeing the entire process. and so far, it has been pretty flawless. a top official within his

office had some ominous news for governor romney. because he told us that the outstanding vote -- there are more outstanding votes in ohio from the urban areas than there are from the rural areas. those usually translate into democratic vote. that is good news for the president as he tries to claim ohio's 18 electoral votes. and bad news for governor romney. scott. >> thank you very much. jan crawford is with the romney campaign in boston tonight. mr. romney has about eight combinations of states by our reckoning that would lead to the 270 electoral votes necessary. that is getting to be a narrow path for him. >> what is so striking is that it was a few weeks ago when the romney campaign was saying that

expanding -- of course it appears tonight that the map is actually narrowed. and you can tell in this crowd. whenever something is announced quiet in this room, in fact when they announced a that north carolina was projected for mitt romney, that was really the first amount of energy or enthusiasm that we heard in this room for some time. but of course north carolina, that was one that everyone believed was leaning toward mitt romney. just as nevada was leaning toward the president. campaigns can tell you things that you learn a lot by what they do. and where they go. and where they haven't been going with north carolina. because we believe that was in romney's can. we have not spent any time in about it. but that was for the president. the rest of these states, mitt romney's 26 visits to ohio, says that the general election campaign began in a critical state for him. again, a very quiet time in this room right now as the crowd

awaits. quiet from campaign officials at this point also. >> thank you. let's switch to chicago and have a look at where the obama campaign is hoping to have a victory rally tonight. a large crowd there. it looks like an enthusiastic crowd. they have reason for optimism tonight. but of course, it is not over until it is over. and the county is not done. and one of the reasons it is not over yet is because the state of virginia. let's take a look at the tabulated vote. we have not be able to project a winner. the polls were due to close at 7:00 eastern time. but they were kept open late because so many people were still in line waiting to vote. and virginia decided that everyone would be allowed to vote and they would get all of those taken care of before the night was out. 77% of that vote has been counted. we have able attend now, the

state of iowa, cbs news projects will go to president obama. this is one of the critical swing states that we have been talking about tonight. this reduces mitt romney's chances to reach 270 considerably. it does not into the race. but it is a serious blow to the romney campaign. this is the presidential race map as it stands right now. president obama with 249 electoral votes. mr. romney with 203. of course it takes 272 when. moving iowa into the president column reduces the number of patents that mr. romney has to reach the right house. and john dickerson is our man with the map. and explain what it means about iowa. >> we move that into the president's column. that takes them to 257

electoral votes. that shrinks to just three. three opportunities for governor romney. we have nevada -- >> let me interrupt you. we have another bulletin. the president has carried the state of oregon. cbs news is predicting that organ has gone the president's way. seven more electoral votes. let's have a look at the presidential race map as the totals change. 256 electoral votes for the president. this is the president's campaign, victory party, what they hope will be a victory party in chicago. they are seeing these election results as we are reporting them to you. and the crowd is growing and energy as we report another victory for the president. no big surprise that the state of oregon has gone for the president. but it does get him very close to the 270 necessary to win. john, i'm sorry to interrupt. please explain to us now what chances mr. romney now have two

when the selection tonight. >> they are down to three. there are just three chances. and we said that nevada is likely -- that could change. but that it -- that would get president obama up to 263 electoral votes. and we are saying that ohio is leaning toward the president, which would get him to 281. the obama campaign talked about firewall in the midwest. he has now been two of the three states and the firewall thought -- ohio and wisconsin. three ways left for governor romney to get up to 270. >> thank you very much. let me show you the popular vote as it is being counted across the country tonight. the popular vote shows mitt romney leading with 39 million votes to the president's 38 million votes. mitt romney is leading the popular vote at this hour. but at the same time, has fallen

significantly behind in the electoral vote. the electoral vote is of course the one that counts. cbs news is now projecting that the president has been reelected. we are projecting that president obama has been reelected. it is the state of ohio that has done the trick for the president. cbs news is projecting that president obama has the state of ohio. and that should be the end of this presidential race. president obama having won a second term. we will pause now to bring in the rest of our cbs stations for this special report. >> pelley: president obama has won a second term as

president of the united states in the last few moments cbs news has projected that president obama would carry the state of ohio and with that, the president has amassed more than the 270 electoral votes necessary to win. this is the president race map has it stands right now. 270 electoral votes needed to win. president obama has 274. that is it. it is done. this is the scene in chicago. at the president's victory rally as you can see quite a large crowd, quite an enthusiastic crowd having just gotten the news that the president has been elected to another four-year term. bob schieffer, president obama

despite the state 69 economy has become first president re-elected since fdr with unemployment rate this high. >> it's a remarkable victory. i must say it is a tribute to the strategists on president obama's campaign team. while mitt romney was going out there and talking about the economy and how he was the expert on the economy, they said every hour that we're not talking about the economy and jobs is an hour lost. they were doing that, the obama team was going in to these battleground states and finding mitt romney in their own terms. and their terms were, this guy is not somebody who is going to fix the economy. this guy is just trying to keep taxes low for his rich friends and that is what did it. >> pelley: as we watched the president's campaign rally in

chicago, let me show you now the popular vote as it's being tabulated all across the country. this is interesting. have a look at the popular vote now. mitt romney has a million more votes than the president roughly. this is the popular vote 40 million votes for mitt romney. just under 39 million votes for the president. but the president has won re-election. these will continue to be tabulated. at this snapshot in time, mitt romney has a million more votes than the president. but the president has won in the only tally that matters, that is the electoral college vote. >> and i need to be checked on this but if memory serves we have never had a president re-elected who lost the popular vote. george bush when he was a candidate of course lost the

popular vote and race against al gore in 2000. i do not believe we have ever had an incumbent president re-elected who also lost the popular vote. this is going to make governing extremely difficult. >> pelley: of course votes still being counted we don't have the final numbers but that is the way it is at the moment. >> this is the most extensive presidential campaign in history. more than two billion dollars spent, money was not an issue. yet this is a status quo election. same democrats in control in the senate, guess what, they all need to get together and fix this. this will -- all the problems they said they didn't fix. this is interesting. >> pelley: only thing different we're out $6 billion, the estimated cost of all these campaigns in the house and senate and presidency here we are in the same place we were

when the day started. >> it's remarkable. i think it's go together cause a lot of people to look at what is going on. republican party, of course, as any candidate who loses whether it's democrat or republican do a lot of soul searching within their party. this is also in part going to be tribute to the obama team that are obsessed with numbers. they have been for four years ground game and turning out their coalition of voters. >> pelley: we are looking in on the president's now victory rally in chicago tonight. our nancy cordes has been with the president every step of the way on the campaign. nancy? >> well, scott, the crowd here in chicago is absolutely going bananas, the president himself is not here. he's down the road in an upscale hotel with family and friends thanking his staffers. we expect him to roll this way shortly. but he has already put out a tweet from barack obama, he said, we're all in this together. that's how we campaign, that's

who we are, thank you, barack obama. mentioned the popular vote it's very interesting that is a question that staffers did not want to answer as many times that we asked them over the past few weeks. especially after hurricane sandy hit the northeast. stronghold for democrats that appeared destined to depress turn out for the president in some of his largest states. they said, we're just not thinking about the popular vote right now we're only focused on our battleground states. but something they're going to have to think about a lot more if these totals hold. >> pelley: thank you very much. let's switch over to jan crawford at romney headquarters in boston. certainly looking like a very different scene in boston, jan? >> reporter: it has been for the past couple hours there really has not been any good news for this crowd tonight. of course very quiet as you can imagine in this room. the questions now, of course, going to begin for the romney

cam main what happened, why, for example didn't respond to some of the negative attacks over the summer allowing obama campaign to define him, particularly some of those battleground states with his work at bank capital. positions on auto industry bail out that really hurt him. people here believe, we're raising questions about that in recent weeks. when we think back at the first debate he had that strong performance, cbs news polls instantly said majority of people believe he in what debate. that gave him a lot of momentum. really shifted the dynamic this race we saw in the polls nationally he took pretty comfortable lead in some of the polls four or five points. we saw him expanding some of his leads in those battleground states that's when you saw romney come pain start to think, we can expand this map this is not just handful maybe make play for pennsylvania. but of course now tonight this race is shaking out much as some people thought it would, boy that first debate back when the president had momentum then

romney lost it. scott? >> pelley: thanks very much. let's look back now at the popular vote. i want to show this to you again. mitt romney has nearly a million more votes than president obama at this moment in time. now, this is going to continue to be counted virtually all night long. it may be days before we have the final popular vote count. but it is interesting at this snapshot in time that mitt romney has nearly a million more votes than the president but the president has won the electoral college vote decisively and it is the electoral college vote that matters. fascinating outcome if indeed that continues to hold. now, it was ohio that put the president over the top, cbs news made that projection just a few minutes ago, ohio put the president over the top and anthony mason has been examining what voters in ohio have been telling us, how did the

president do it? >> well, scott, the two candidates spent more time and held more rallies in ohio than any other state, but here is why the president ultimately prevailed in ohio. first of all, he won women by a 55-43% margin. this is an improvement by few points of what he did four years ago. he won young voters 63% to 34%. again, his margin with young voters of higher than it was four years ago. finally among those voters who said i want candidate who cares about me, that was one of their top priorities, he won overwhelmingly by 84 to 14%. these three categories critical for the president in carrying ohio state he won four years ago, and wins again tonight puts them over the top tonight. >> pelley: thank you, anthony. john dickerson our political director has been following events. john, i wonder how did the president put this together in your estimation? >> what's interesting at the beginning of this race, the obama team laid out different

paths tolt presidency. most probable one that most analysts thought that the path would be through states like colorado and virginia with big minority populations, lots of change in the population, kind of new coalition, kind that had given him victories in 2008. but that fire wall in the midwest is an old fashioned democratic coalition. there aren't a lot of minority voters in the state, he won minorities handily. the fire wall that he built is of a different kind than -- we don't know how those other states are going to go. the one that everybody expected him to use to stay in office. >> pelley: thank you very much we're looking at obama campaign, the obama campaign victory rally now in chicago. we would expect president would be coming out in the near future. romney would be giving a call to the president as is traditional to congratulate him for his

victory, once that call is made, we would expect to see the president here on this stage to greet his supporters. bob schieffer? >> when you think about it, it all came down to ohio. as we -- many thought it would. and this was the state where the employment picture was better than it was in other parts of the country. where the bail out of the auto companies had actually worked. there's no question about that, yet mitt romney was on the wrong side of that, he had said in the beginning it was better to let the companies go in to some sort of forced bankruptcy, people took that to mean bankruptcy, just let them go broke it was the wrong state of all the states to have that -- to be on that side of the argument. all of this also goes back -- governor romney started this general election after having gone through an absolutely

brutal primary that went on and one. people talked at the time, this makes a candidate stronger, i don't think it makes governor romney stronger. what it did it pushed him so far to the right that once he got to the general election he had to find some way to get a little bit back toward the center which he did after that first debate. and during that first debate even during the debate on foreign policy. we saw him come closer to where president obama was on a lot of these. but he just had a long road to travel. >> pelley: norah, the president's auto bail out back in 2009 helped him in ohio tonight and his campaign began heavy negative advertising against mitt romney in ohio way back in last spring and clearly that was a winning strategy for him as well. >> in may, the obama campaign went up on the air in ohio with

an ad called -- accused mitt romney which is head of bain capital shutting down a steel plant that had been around for a hundred years. it was a devastatingly negative ad. they started it early. what it meant is that by the time mitt romney arrived at his own convention he would be the first presidential candidate of either party in the past seven elections to start september with his approval rating upside down. higher negatives than positives. this is nothing new in politics, don't forget in 1972 supporters of richard in this case on called george mcgovern. bill clinton went early negative on bob dole you can remember 2004 george w. bush accused john kerry of flip-flopping. this is a tried and true campaign tactic the obama campaign were really tough on mitt romney early on. >> pelley: the ohio vote so very close, that these things would appear to have made the difference for the president. this is the scene of the

president's victory rally in chicago and our nancy cordes is there tonight. >> you heard norah talking about that ad of the obama campaign made a difference in ohio. there's another ad they thought made a big difference really fueled governor romney's fate this was ad aired by governor romney himself in the past two weeks where his campaign argued that jeep, which has a big plant outside toledo, was going to be moving production to china. well, this was an ad that was pretty thoroughly debunked, got a lot of negative attention in ohio. lot of people felt it was a hail mary play for the romney campaign. didn't ring true for a lot of people in ohio who work at that plant know that the plant isn't going anywhere. the obama campaign was really merciless. the president going after romney again and again on the trail in ohio saying, you are scaring voters, you are scaring people who work at that plant they're wondering whether their jobs are going to be taken away.

that's no way to run a campaign. of course a lot of this is standard stuff for campaign. but talking to obama campaign officials over past week they feel that that ad run by the romney campaign really did him in. >> pelley: nancy, we're looking at some of the exit polling data that we have from talking to voters all across the country, it looks like there was a ten-point gender gap. 55% of women voted for president obama. 45% of men did. certainly this battle over women was titanic, particularly as the race got down to the final days. and in the debates as well. >> and the obama campaign never miss add chance to speak directly to women. the president mentioned women at every campaign stop, in fact something interesting that we noticed on the campaign trail is that the person who introduced the president at every rally was a different fresh that state. was almost always a woman. a woman who would tell her

personal story, talk about what the president ha haddon that was favorable towards women, whether it was signing the lilly ledbetter act for fair pay or insuring improvement for women's health. then she would introduce the president. we thought that can't be an accident that there are always having women introduce them. they know that this is one of his biggest constituencies, they know that women make up 53% of the electorate they were making a big play for women. >> republicans got to find a better way to appeal to women and their appeal to hispanics. somebody said to us the other day, they can back themselves in to a demographic cul-de-sac here. and they just got to find a way out. as i said earlier tonight there are not that many old white men left. that's the strength of the republican party. >> that is the view of jeb bush, that is the few of condoleezza rice, of haley

barber, view of senator marco rubio the republican party has to build a new winning coalition. >> we had picture of the white house tonight, president of course is in chicago. but there is the white house where he will be living for the next four years. it appears. he will be inaugurated on january 20th, which street named in the constitution as the date of the president's inauguration. but the inauguration parades and all the public hoopla will be january 21 because the 20th this year is on sunday. and so the president will have private inauguration on that sunday and then the big inauguration parade will be on the 21st. >> in fact our cbs cameraman john murphy reports outside lafayette park there's over a thousand students who are cheering outside of the white house this evening tonight. there has been a group of people that have gathered outside the white house.

>> pelley: let's have a look at the national presidential vote map as it stands right now. several states are still out. but the election is over. the president has reached 270 electoral votes necessary to win. president obama with 274 now. there's no way mitt romney can catch up to that. mitt romney at 203. still several states, florida, virginia, colorado, nevada unable to make projections in those states because it's so very close in those states. but still mitt romney is eeking out a lead in the popular vote. but unfortunately for romney supporters it is not the popular vote that matters. it is the electoral vote. as outlined in the article ii of the u.s. constitution. it is the electoral vote that matters and president obama has been victorious in that electoral vote tonight. we have not heard from either

candidate yet this evening. presumably mitt romney is calling the president to congratulate the president on his victory. and shortly after that phone call we would expect that the president would come out to this scene in chicago where thousands of his supporters have filled the mccormick center are waiting to hear from the president tonight. to repeat, cbs news projects that barack obama the 44th president of the united states has won re-election, defeating mitt romney tonight. on january 20th, mr. obama will be sworn in to a second term. this has been a cbs news special report. cbs news coverage of election night 2012 will continue. in just a moment. >> pelley: welcome back to

our campaign 2012 coverage, president barack obama has just won a second term as president of the united states. let us show you the scene tonight at the mccormick center in chicago. these are the pr t's supporters who have gathered at the victory party there in chicago, they are still waiting for the president to come out and address them. but the president a short time ago with a victory projected in the state of ohio, the president went over the 270 electoral votes needed to win. even though florida, virginia, colorado and nevada are still out, no projections in those states, it is mathematically impossible for mitt romney to catch up to the president. president obama has been re-elected. we see the romney headquarters in boston there on the right.

the realization of a hard fought campaign going the other way. now sinking in on those people at the romney headquarters. we have not heard from governor romney nor president obama yet. but we expect that we will very shortly. bob schieffer, a hard fought campaign most expensive presidential campaign in history both spent about a billion dollars each. >> most expensive election overall, $6 billion when you add up what it costs for all the other things. but let me tell i something, scott, if this campaign was hard wait until you get to what's ahead for president obama because we're facing by the end of this year what people are calling this fiscal cliff where all of the bush tax cuts expire, where the draconian cuts go in to affect across the board not only social programs but -- in the defense department. there is a general mess shaping

up here, of serious proportions here you have a president elected who lost the popular vote. what kind of a mandate is he going to have here. you have the same -- republicans are now going to own the house. democrats are still going to hold the senate. they have been in virtual gridlock for the last two years. will this election really make a difference? the democrats were saying beforehand that they thought it would but what do you think, norah? >> we're still waiting for a lot of the vote to come in in california and some of the west coast states we could see that popular vote change a bit there. bob is absolutely right that president obama now faces these huge challenges he's got to work with john boehner, the speaker of the house. these two men who wouldn't return one another's calls the last time the fiscal cliff problem came around. in anticipation that have john boehner was quoted as saying he's not going to budge one inch on taxes. will not raise taxes on the

wealthiest americans so they are already at loggerheads. it's unclear how they're going to get something done. >> they set all this up, scott, way to force the congress to come up with realistic plans to start to solve the deficit problem or start down that path stewards some sort of fiscal reform also thought it would be a way to force them to find ways to increase revenue. but the congress did what it's done the last year. nothing. so they're stuck with this thing now how they're going to get out of it. this is the old congress that's got to resolve this now. not the next congress. all of this goes in to affect at the end of this year unless they figure out some way to start solving these problems. i must tell you after watching the congress for last two years i'm not optimistic. >> pelley: mr. obama has just increased his margin in the electoral vote, cbs news is projecting that the president will win the state of nevada and

it's six electoral votes. now let's have a look at the presidential race map as it stands right now that gives the president 280 electoral votes and mitt romney 203. with the three states in white still outstanding -- this is a much closer election than the president's first election. the president won 365 electoral votes in 2008. still some of these states could go the president's way. but there is no way now that mitt romney can catch up to the president. the president has won re-lex. let's have a look at the popular vote again. mitt romney was ahead by about a million votes. that has become a little -- now -- yes it's become a little more slender i would say. president has caught up in the popular vote. mitt romney still ahead in the popular vote, but these numbers will be counted all through the night and probably for the next

several days as norah was saying, some of the western states that support the president they're still being counted tonight. it's unclear whether mitt romney will have the lead at the end of the day in the popular vote. but he does have the lead in the popular vote at the moment. still waiting for mitt romney to come out in boston. our correspondent in boston is jan crawford. jan? >> he said, what we did was we didn't look at the independents and misjudged enthusiasm. why this is important is because this campaign and this candidate believes they were going to win this race. they thought going in, their numbers were better, their polling was better they believed that their enthusiasm was better they were using different models they did not think president obama would replicate the turn out that he got in that race in 2008.

historic turn out they believed they had more enthusiasm on their side. so they rejected a lot of those state polls that showed the president with the solid lead. you saw of course governor romney saying that he believed we win, he had written a victory speech are he wasn't writing a concession speech. anyone who follows sports, if you don't follow politics, hardest losses are those that you believe that you're going to win. that's the way this campaign is going to be tonight. people outside the campaign they have thought that governor romney didn't have strong chance that the president had took the lead. but the campaign and candidates believe they were going to win. that's what they're going to of to grapple with tonight and why and where their numbers went wrong. a final point, the irony of this is that mitt romney is a numbers guy. he's a data guy, a businessman, he built businesses that was the big cornerstone of his campaign. but tonight he was failed by his numbers, his polling and his data. >> pelley: jan, thank you

very much. bob, you had an observation. >> we'll give data from the national exit polls which are giving us some reason why that barack obama won tonight. 54% approve of the job that he is doing that's according to the voters who came out of the voting booths today. this was a national poll. 53% he had favorable waiting among 53% versus 46% for romney. 70% decide who'd to vote for before september. 42% said handling of sandy was an important factor in their decision. that's one thing we haven't really talked much about, the stunning pictures of governor christie and barack obama and governor christie being so gracious and thanking him for the help that the federal government did. those pictures were only part of the story. the other part was, this time,

unlike what happened after katrina, this time the federal relief agencies and the state agencies actually did a really good job. i think people just may have given the president 134 credit for that. >> pelley: nancy cordes is in chicago at the obama victory rally. >> well, scott, short time ago the president who is not here at his rally yet but down the street at upscale hotel thanking no doubt his staffers who helped him go over the top tonight. he sent out an e-mail to all of his supporters across the country telling them, thank you and saying, this was no accident tonight. this is because of everything that you did. and it is true that tonight's election is a validation of his ground game. he had 800 field offices across the country concentrated in those battleground states compared to 300 for governor

romney. look at ohio, the president had 137 field offices in that state. governor romney 39. now the romney campaign always argued that that didn't matter that they weren't in the real estate business they didn't need to be popping a lot of pens and paying rent. obama campaign argued that it was crucially important just as it was important that they had the same neighborhood captains in place for the past five years who knew every single person in the neighborhood, knew how they voted, knew how to get them to the polls. and the obama campaign said that that was really the key to their victory tonight. the fact that this was the first president to keep his campaign apparatus intact not just intact but build on it. and in fact we learned over the weekend that the obama campaign registered 1.8 million new voters over the past four years. that's double the number of voters that they registered before the '08 campaign. not only did they keep that

apparatus that was responsible for the electoral votes in 2008 but improved on it and they had always said, scott, that that is what going to be their key. >> pelley: do we have any idea when we might hear from the president? >> we don't. we've been asking that question, scott. it's not going to be a long drive. from the hotel here to his victory rally which is in a huge convention hall right on lake michigan in south chicago. we assumed that he's awaiting a call, perhaps already gotten a call from governor romney thanking him. i anticipate that when the president takes the stage tonight one person who he is going to be thanking or should at least, is former president bill clinton. we've not talked a lot about president clinton tonight but when he delivered that speech at the democratic national convention a few months ago, it is as if a light bulb went on in the obama campaign. they realized that in one

speech, president clinton haddon a better job of telling the president's record east than mr. obama himself had been doing. you saw a huge turn around in president obama's stump speech, he started talking about his record much more aggressively. he started talking about arithmetic as president clinton haddon saying that governor romney 's some 37 stops between convention and today. >> pelley: do we in fact have any indication that governor romney has conceded? >> we have not heard information to that -- what have you got, norah? >> i'm told that romney has not yet called the president. but his aides are saying that he's not yet ready. about 11:ha appears that he has not yet called the president. >> pelley: we would expect that romney would call the president then if things go as they normally do we would expect to see mitt romney make a

concession speech in boston before we see the president come out. >> you would think at this point that he has not conceded or he just hasn't called the president. sounds like you're saying he hasn't conceded at this point. >> i don't have enough information from inside the headquarters other than the phone call has not yet been made. always different reasons for that. might still be looking at the data themselves. >> pelley: john dickerson our cbs news political director has been watching all of this. john, it would appear that the president has won despite the economy and because of his campaign. >> that's right. start taking messages and lessons from this. a couple of things, listening to nancy's reporting the president has had permanent campaign. already there's a permanent campaign, there's a part of governing now it's in the rule book. romney was running for six years. for people who are tired of these long campaigns there's nothing in this victory that is going to dissuade any candidate

from not having a permanent campaign. second message, still negative. define your opponent relentlessly ruthlessly early that's what did it in ohio. what messages do the republicans take? three possibilities. one is that another might be reexamination of ideas how to reach tout to hispanics and women voters. third option is maybe mitt romney wasn't a great candidate that debate will start immediately because whoever wins that debate gets to define the republican party going forward. >> pelley: thanks very much. lafayette park stands directly across the street from the white house we have a picture from there tonight. apparently a number of people have gathered in lafayette park and across the street right in front of the the gates of the white house. this is the scene there this evening. listen in for a moment. obviously supporters of the president.

waiting outside the white house. president of course is not at the white house tonight. he's in chicago. and we expect to see him greeting his supporters there in mccormick place on that stage in the not too distant future. but first there will have to be some formalities done in terms of mitt romney conceding the election, calling the president, making concession speech then once all that have is done we would expect to see the president walk out to that podium in front of thousands of supporters there in chicago. anthony mason has been looking in to our exit polling information, we've been talking to voters in every state, all day long as they have left the polling places asking them how they voted and why they voted the way they did. anthony, based on all of that,

how did the president do it? >> well, scott, it was interesting to see all these young people cheering outside the white house because young voters made up a big part of the coalition that helped the president this time. three key groups that helped him tower years ago as well. first women he took r5 5% of women -- 55% to 43% for governor romney about same margin the president had four years ago. he won hispanics 69% of hispanics that's better than he had four years go norah pointed out throughout the night hispanics are making up a bigger part of electorate, 10% this time, they were 9% four years ago. his margin with younger voters did shrink somewhat, but he still won them going away. 60 to 36%. it's interesting, bob mentioned it, voters who left the polls told us that in general they approve of the president's job. majority, 54% told us that. the other thing that's very interesting here, we know the economy was the top issue, but when asked -- people were asked who would do better job on the economy actually mitt romney had only one-point advantage here.

this was the issue that was supposed to cut against the president, the unemployment rate was supposed to hurt him, in the end he loses the economy as an issue by a single point, scott. >> pelley: thank you very much. let's have a look at the tabulated vote in florida. there is still three states we have not been able to make a projection, not going to make a difference in the outcomes but it's interesting to see. the tabulated vote in florida because it is so very close, 91% of the vote has been counted in florida. and have look at that, there's about 50,000 votes between them. again, if mitt romney wins florida it will make no difference in tonight's race. but an interesting, interesting division there in the state of florida. the state of virginia also is a state where we have not been able to make a projection. let's have a look at the tabulated vote there in virginia. 86% of the vote counted there.

it is just as close as it can be. norah o'donnell? >> really interesting things as we're looking at this composite of the electorate. first, hispanics. 10% of the electorate, that is up 1% broke overwhelmingly for obama by 69%. females, made up 54% of the electorate, that's bigger than expected. looks like to me that obama won 12 points among women, mitt romney won seven points among men. you add those together that's ha 19 point gender gap that's huge. these numbers are still changing as the exit polls come in but that would be one of the billingest gender gaps since around 2000, the al gore-george w. bush. black voters, 13% of the electorate. those vote for obama. >> pelley: another bulletin not that it will change anything but adds to the president's margin. cbs news is projecting the state of colorado will go the president's way with its nine

electoral votes. let's have look at the presidential race map as it stands at this moment. this is the presidential race map the president with 290 electoral votes. 20 more than he needed to win the presidency. mitt romney with 203. the state of florida and state of virginia are still out because the vote is so very close there but it cannot make a difference in tonight's outcome. just by way of reference, in 2008 the president won with 365 electoral votes to john mccain's 173. a big difference. much closer race in this campaign, bob schieffer. >> it really is. but you know, so interesting to watch that national vote come in then look at what's happening in the electoral college. it's almost like we had two different elections now. it's not a national election any more it's an election in these

battleground states and it's totally different situation there. you're in a battleground state you get all the ads, the visits from the candidate, in california or texas or louisiana some place like that, the election could be thousand miles away, i cannot help but believe that the fact this is breaking down the way it is now adds to the partisanship. a deep divide in this country. i'm not saying if mitt romney had spent more time out in california that he would have won. but at least people out there would have gotten both sides of the argument. >> pelley: thank you. you're watching cbs news coverage of election night 20126789

11/6/12 you're watching cbs 5 eyewitness news campaign 2012 election night. >> good evening. coming up on 9:00. the big news at this hour is president obama reelected president of the united states. cbs news calling the state of ohio for mr. obama. and that was enough to put him over the top in the electoral vote. >> let's get right to cbs 5 reporter joe who is live at the democratic party in san francisco. >> reporter: the victory party has begun. several hundred supporters of the president. and let me show you what they were doing just after 8:00 today. first california, then oregon and then the networks including cbs starting calling it that the president had won. they erupted into cheers.

it was pandamonium. trying to reelect barack obama and they have succeeded. back to you guys. >> thank you. >> the re-election of president obama is a definite disappointment for the state's republicans. >> let's check in with ann who is live from a gop watch party in walnut creek. >> reporter: hi, guys. it was early excite ment. these people thought they were going to see a republican in the white house. got very quiet. the gop chair said he thinks under obama's second administration the ee skon me is going to go -- economy is going to go down. and he's projecting that he believes that there's going to be a republican in the governor's mansion. >> that's why we have the elections. thank you for that. >> the polls in california

closed less than an hour ago. we are starting to get some results. so we're going to get right to that. >> let's check the latest numbers as we see them right now. prop 30 is losing slightly right now. the yes vote 48%. the no vote was about 50%. >> and the other election tax measure is prop 38. right now with 13% of the precincts reporting it is also losing. 75 to 25%. allen martin is live in sacramento with more on prop 30 and 38. >> reporter: well, certainly this democratic crowd here bolstered by the fact the president is reelected tonight. not such good news on prop 30 where they have seen support drop 9% in the past month but clinging to the fact 14% of voters were still undecided. the question being did they want to raise their sales tax a

quarter of a cent. income tax to go up. apparently the polls were correct. at this point as you pointed out it is going down to defeet tonight. governor romney expected here tonight. >> several state propositions are making headlines tonight including prop 34 which would ban the death penalty. >> back to cbs 5 political reporter now. >> let's start with that ban on the death penalty with proposition 34. you can see it looks like the no's are winning meaning we would keep the death penalty in the state of california. 36 would revise the three strikes law and winning by wide margin, 68% saying let's revise it. proposition 34, not doing so well. >> all right. thank you. >> we'll see you back in 25 minutes. ,,

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struck hid night in the east. it is a brand new day. headline is, barack obama has been re-elected president of the united states. we're waiting for the official concession from mitt romney, we haven't heard anything about that yet. that last report he has not placed a telephone call to the president. the republicans who took control of the house of representatives two years ago will be in charge for two more years at least. the democrats will maintain control of the senate. let's have a look at the presidential race for -- this is how it all shook out. there are two states that we still cannot project, florida and virginia those are too close to call but they cannot make a difference mathematically in the outcome. president obama has won

re-election. president obama has 290 electoral votes at this moment. mitt romney 203. it is 270 electoral votes that wins the presidency so president obama well passed that at this point. john dickerson has been analyzing the race, john, i wonder among the people who decided late in this campaign, which way did they break? romney or obama. >> about 9% of the electoral made up their decision in the last few days. there's no rule in politic, is that is much debated whether late deciders break for the incumbent or challenger. romney people insisted they would be the beneficiaries of those late deciders. president obama won that group 51-44. the question then is, was this about the president's performance in dealing with hurricane sandy. there was a lot of speculation how this may have changed the

race. governor romney was making a pitch saying i am bipartisan guy that can get things done. the storm came along, president was able to show that he could be effective and how in working with republican governor of new jersey will have to do a little more reporting but for that 9% that may have played a little bit of a role. scott john, thank you. norah, do you think sandy was a helpful october surprise for the president? >> it appears based on some of the data that it may have been. once number of republicans hear that they're going to be angry at new jersey governor chris christie who some felt helped the president. other people said, these guys were doing their job for a lot of people who were really hurting, who lost their homes, lost their electricity for many people who died as a result of hurricane sandy. chris christie was effusive in his praise of the president. one point even praising the president for calling him and putting bruce springsteen on the phone so that he could talk to

bruce springsteen as governor christie have had a tense relationship in the past. but apparently that has now mended with the help of the president. >> pelley: almost look like running mates in some of these pictures. you rep chris christie giving keynote address at the republican national convention. now standing side by side with the president and praising the president going out of his way. >> you know, this is what public officials are supposed to do. this is what people want them to d. they behaved as we would expect them to. governor christie he was in trouble. he went asked federal government for help, president said i'm on the case. well, he was gracious enough to say, thank you. i think what this is an example of is that doing the right thing is generally pretty good politics, i hope some other elected official take a lesson from this. i think this is what people want to see. whatever the impact it had on governor romney, i remain to be convinced it didn't have that all of an impact.

hats love to both for their -- there were people in trouble out there where the heat was off, they were drowning, these two fellas got together and got them out of it. what's wrong with that? >> pelley: there's going to have to be a lot of soul searching i would imagine among members of the republican party as this new day dawns here on the east coast. now that they lost this election. >> yes. i think one thing that may come out of this doing right thing is good politics i think it was especially good politics for governor christie. because the field is going to be wide open in 2016 as who is going to run for the republican nomination. i would put chris christie right out there in front right now. i think marco rubio would also be a candidate. i think jeb bush will be a candidate. i wouldn't be surprised with paul ryan is not a candidate next time out. i think you're going to see

whole new slate here. >> it's never too early to start talking about the next election. >> pelley: you know that somebody is planning it as we speak. jan crawford is at romney campaign headquarters kind of a solemn mood there this evening, jan? >> well, it is very silent here. we're still waiting on governor romney to give that consection speech. many people expected he would be here quite some time ago, there is no indication there's been any movement for governor romney to this call to address this crowd. i want to go back to something we were talking about. this campaign thought he was going to win. may be taking awhile to sink in. they did according to representatives lose this race they believed they were going to carry it off tonight. they thought it would be positive, told me last night that already put in place preparations for something tomorrow because -- the romney campaign would be looking forward maybe having some event tomorrow to talk about possible

recount, they expected a challenge if this was close. all of this campaign, strain of this campaign going back to heart fought primary that romney endured several challenges, survived that, won florida of course to go on win the republican nomination. in that bruising battle that you all have been talking about the ads, the strain that have then realization that it's over may be just taking awhile for it to sink in. >> pelley: if this follows the normal course of events we would expect governor romney to be making a phone call directly to the president to congratulate him. then see governor romney make concession speech there where jan is in boston. then we would go to where nancy cordes in chicago where we would expect the president to make a victory speech in front of thousands of people there at the mccormick center. >> white house official confirms that as of a few minutes ago the president had not received a

concession call from governor romney. until that happens it appears unlikely the president will get in to his motorcade head here to mcpore mic place to declare victory. he's holed up with his staffers, with vice president biden who has been very busy over the past hour making phone calls, reaching out to democrats who have won re-election in the senate or heading to the senate for the first time. vice president buy den very interesting started out the day in his home state of delaware where he voted and reporter asked him, vice president, do you think this is last time you'll ever vet for yourself? vice president smiled and said, no, i don't think so. of course that got a lot of people thinking, does that mean he's going to run for the presidency himself in four years but later on in the day vice president joked that maybe he'll go back to delaware and run for city council or something like that. the vice president made a last minute stop in ohio today after

the romney come pain '-- campaign that he was going to make stops and paul ryan. vice president buy den dropped in, visited some voters in cleveland, really unusual -- and paul ryan's plane all on the tarmac in cleveland, ohio, then he headed here to chicago. >> pelley: thank you very much, nancy. we want to get a little perspective from our cbs news election consultant, frank luntz who is a pollster for the republican party. frank, this would have been a layup under other circumstances, we've said it before tonight. no president with unemployment rate this high has ever been re-elected since fdr. i wonder what are republicans thinking of where they are tonight? >> well the strange thing that as bad as this was for the presidential campaign it's been access amongst house races where republicans are holding their own. end up with a net gain which

nobody was expecting. in the end, mitt romney was able to prove that he was a problem solver but he was unable to prove that he understood their problems. with the republican needs to pay attention to what i call the empathy quotient. ability to understand, appreciate and communicate that they really get what the average american is thinking and feeling and then they can prove that they can solve those problems. >> pelley: what demographics in the country based on what we know at this point if the republicans nail to reach. who do they need to reach now that they haven't reached tonight? >> well, that's he's he's. first is hispanics, you cannot win national election when you are getting 20-something percent of the hispanic vote. it's not a monolithic community. you have to reach out to cubans, puerto ricans, dominicans, central americans, that is something that the romney campaign was awnible awnible too do. also women aged 30-49, new moms, young mothers.

you can't have gender gap, as norah pointed out, 19% and expect to be elected to a national party. y it's going to be ial that they reach out to those who don't identify with any political party. in the end you're going to get your base. victory goes to those who bring in those in the center. >> pelley: frank, cbs news consultant and republican party pollster thank you very much for being with us tonight. cbs news coverage of campaign 2012 election night will continue in just a moment. >> pelley: back now with

election night on cbs. let's have a look at the presidential race map as it stands right now. cbs news projected some time ago that the president would carry the state of ohio, with that, that put president obama over the 270 electoral votes necessary to win the presidency. the president now has 290 electoral votes to mitt romney's 203. states of florida and virginia still have not been projected, vote there is so very close, we have not been able to make a projection. but if mitt romney won virginia and florida it would not make the difference tonight. president obama has won

re-election. but let us show you the tabulated vote in the state of ohio as it exists right now. 81% of the vote in, look at that, 49% to 49%. there is less than 30,000 votes between the two of them with another 19% of the vote yet to count. but based on our exit polling that we have done all over ohio all day long talking to voters cbs news has projected that the president is the winner in ohio. i want to go to our political director john dickerson. john, explain to me with the vote as close as it is in ohio why has cbs news projected that ohio goes to the president? >> because they decided that in looking at places where president needs to do well he's done well. that in the places mitt romney needed to do extra well he has not done as well as he needed to then the swing areas, the president has won the day. so, in hamilton county, for example, the president is doing

well. in lake county which was -- used to be a bellwether has gone for governor romney. it loses its status. but the president, one of the things that was striking in looking at the exit polls i went on a bus tour with the president in ohio. he would talk to the audience and basically say, i'm one of you. i'm fighting for you because i'm one of you. he talked about staying with his mother in howard johnson playing with the ice maker when he was a little kid on vacations they took. how that is what people -- all they wanted was to take a vacation. that was the personal appeal that was connected to the auto bailout which is, i care about you i fought for you that's why in the exit polls you ask voters of ohio which candidate cares about you the president won 84-15. >> pelley: we have projected the winner in ohio because of what we know about the individual counties. and historical voting trends in those counties and what we know of the tabulated vote in those

counties. >> that's exactly right. both what we know about what is happening and what has happened. what's possible in the universe of the possible outcome there is not a possible outcome in which governor romney can win. >> pelley: john, thank you very much. an than on this knee mason has been looking at the polling date from all 50 states. how did the president put it together tonight? >> the first way you can look at this, you look at the battleground board that we followed all night long as you know we began with nine states. these are results we have in, mostly blue. president has won six of those states, they are two toss ups still, virginia and florida. mitt romney won only north carolina. but the real key here, we talked about this before but i've got to go back to it was the economy. this was the number one issue, 60% of the people put it at the top of the list. president obama who was supposed to be running against an 8% unemployment rate has effectively neutralized that issue. he won 48% on the issue of who would do better job. lost by one point.

medicare a big issue. president won that substantially as who would do better job, 52% said president owe been bama. who would you trust to handle international crisis, president won this overwhelmingly 57-49%. but if you go back to the economy couple of things are important here. as the election approached you saw the stock market getting better, saw the job market getting a little bit better, saw the housing market getting better. another interesting point when voters were asked, who mitt romney's policies favored 55% said they favored the wealthy. >> pelley: anthony, thank you. bob schieffer, what do you have there. >> well, one reason we may notby he told a television station in denver today that he had president obama said that he had prepared both victory speech and a concession speech. he said, you always have to have two speeches prepared because you can't take anything for

granted. on the other hand, governor romney who was spending the night in massachusetts, said he had written only one speech tonight. he said i just finished writing a victory speech. maybe the reason we haven't heard from him maybe he's busy writing a speech here. >> pelley: we have some information, some original reporting from jan crawford at the romney campaign in boston. about a concession -- jan, what do you have? >> i just heard from one of the senior advisors he tells me that the governor is not ready to concede at this point. they are still obviously seeing something out there they want to make sure before they call the president then comes here to give that concession speech. of course you mentioned ohio, there is some sense, by some republicans that that state could could be in their reach this could be hope against hope that this thing is not over. but at this point they are not yet ready to concede. however, scott, i have to tell you, this crowd certainly has.

there is just a sense of deflation and defeat in this room. what we're hearing amongst our other reporters in the field who are with the campaign that staffers also very resigned to the defeat. a lot of readieda lot of gloom and doom as one of our reporters put it in a note earlier tonight. but at this point campaign and governor not yet ready to concede. >> pelley: thanks very much. take quick look again at tabulated vote in the state of ohio as it stands right now. 81% of the vote has been counted. as you can see it is as close to a dead heat as it can possibly be. but based on the exit polling that we have done all over the state and our analysis of the exit polling data and comparison to the historical trends in various counties around ohio cbs news has projected that ohio will go to the president and that is the race. cbs news coverage of election night 2012 will continue. >> pelley: welcome back to

cbs coverage of election night. the other theme of the night, other than the presidential elections whether the republican party could take back control of the step at. they only needed to pick up four seats more than they started the night with. but it does not appear that that is in the cards for the republicans. bryon pitts has been keep up with the step at and house races for us tonight. byron, where does it stand? >> this point it looks like democrats will keep control of the u.s. senate. no change there. but we do know the number of women in the u.s. senate will increase this evening. going in to the night there were

17 women in the u.s. senate, the most to ever serve at the same time. two are retiring, two major parties have 18 women running. that includes six democrats incumbents what were seeking re-election all of them won. their joined by six other democrats that includes congresswoman tommy baldwin in miss wisconsin she could be the first female senator from that state. elizabeth warren in massachusetts she won earlier becoming first woman senator from massachusetts. now, looking at the republicans, in nebraska, deb fisher has won. so we could see women holding 20 seats by the end of the evening. that would be one -- that would be 20%. while, scott, that's certainly significant we all should keep in mind that women make up 51% of the u.s. population. >> pelley: thank um. we want to to go dean reynolds ip ohio who has later information about the vote counting there.

>> scott, it's a bit of reality check. the republicans may be waiting for the returns to come in but in fact secretary of state's office here says that the outstanding returns are coming from urban areas, traditionally democratic areas not rural areas, traditionally republican areas. then there are the provisional ballots which will be counted later. i stress that in 2008 they broke to president obama like 6 to 37%. so governor romney would have to be ahead of president obama at this point right now to have any hope to actually claim the state's electoral votes. >> pelley: thank you very much, dean. you are watching cbs news coverage of election night 2012.

decided, many state and locl races are still up for grab. the polls closed in califora little more than an hour agd results are still coming ino our newsroom. right now, prop 30 is _ _ _. that's the governor s tax he to fund education. the other education tax meae is prop 38. right now, it's _ _ _ . cbs-5 reporter allen martins live in sacramento with mor. allen. the gov got elected to fix e problem, he put forward a balanced solution, it not hs education, it helps higher education and i think the results will speak for themselves tonight. thanks allen. as for the other high-profie

propositions.... let's get back to cbs 5 political repr grace lee.

prop 34 prop 36 prop 32 pro7 dana, ken, back to you.

cbs-5 political insider phil matier joins us... phil - you're seeing the numbers -r thoughts? thanks phil we'll be back in 25 minutesh more local election coverag. now back to cbs news and sct pelley.

,,,,,,,, >> pelley: if you're just

joining us cbs news is projecting that president owe bam has been re-elect. but mitt romney is telling our jan crawford they're not ready toe concede. not given up on ohio which we projected the president has won. our cbs news estimate is that the president has won 290 electoral votes, 20 hoer than he needs for victory. romney has 203. the republicans have maintained control of the house of representatives and appears democrats will still be in charge of the senate in the new 113th congress. have a look at the race map. 270 electoral votes needed. mitt romney with 203. as you can see there are two states that we have not been

able to make projections on because the race in those states is too close and we do not have enough information to make a projection. the tabulated vote in v. this is 89%. it doesn't get a whole lot closer than that. president obama with slender, slender lead in virginia as that vote continues to be counted. the other state that we have not been able to project is state of florida. with 28 auto electoral votes. 91% of the vote has been counted. and again, incredibly slender lead on the part of the president. let's have a look at the popular vote this is the national popular vote and as you can see nearly tied. 49 million for president, 49 million for mitt romney.

just almost an exact tie. a lot of votes are still being counted. this will go on probably for several days. we won't know what the exact national tally will be for several more days. but it's interesting that the two men at this point are dead even but that the president has a significant advantage in the electoral vote count which of course is the only count that matters. bob? >> i think it is interesting that we're now seeing barack obama pull ahead slightly. but at least he's pulling ahead. i think from the standpoint of trying to govern, i think even if he wins popular vote by only 10 or 15 votes i think it will be a little easier. he's not going to have a mandate here. president has been re-elected but nobody has put the stamp of approval on his program. when the vote is this close he's going to have a very, very

difficult time. >> pelley: he had 290 electoral votes according to our projection. but in 2008 he won with 365 electoral votes. very different story. >> that's right. it was a very different story. and that's why obama had a large margin of victory in 2008. then he was able to -- that shrunk. did he not have as big a margin as he had in 2008 which was ha seven points he won nationally over john mccain. some interesting trends that are interesting tonight composite of the electorate, number of women that have been elected tolt senate, record number of latinos elected to the house of representatives. there are some other interesting stories that are changing the way politics as even though we have status quo election. >> this was a tactical victory tonight. >> good point. >> this is what we saw. this was not an election about

big ideas about what is america's role in the world going to be. this was a victory by some very clever politicians, i mean -- my hat is off to them. they figured out that they had to define mitt romney under their own terms. and they turned mitt romney rightly or wrongly, while he was talking about fixing the economy they were talking about vacation house that had car elevators. they were talking about trying to keep taxes low for his rich friends. this was a tactical victory. >> pelley: $2 bill one spent on this physical shoot election. no memorable rhetoric as you say here. there are no big ideas no great new direction for the country. >> lot of ads. >> pelley: lot of ads. >> won't miss those. >> pelley: it was a knife fight between these two candidates and this is what you have. >> i'm sort of interested in

now what is going on behind the scenes. what is going on in governor romney's hotel room with his senior advisors right now. what is the calculation that they're making? they're clearly governor not ready to concede. in part because of the state of ohio where they want to see the full vote come in. he fought hard in this campaign and it's very difficult to concede. there's a lot of unhappy americans who voted for mid tonight who probably don't want to concede either. there is calculation going on behind the scenes and obama probably celebrating with family but also wondering when he's going to hear from governor romney. this is the stuff that makes a novel really what is going on right now in each of these camps weighing these numbers and this decision by the country. >> pelley: mitt romney spent six years running for president he's not going to mind if another couple hours go by before he concedes that effort. anthony mason has been looking at our exit polling information tonight we've been talking to voters in every state all across the country. what are you seeing in that?

>> we've been talking about the split nationally in the country. the red and blue split. also an economic split. 55% of the voters in our national exit poll said the u.s. economic system favors the wealthy. we asked voters should we increase taxes and about 47% -- >> pelley: i'm sorry. i just have to interrupt -- i just have to interrupt. bulletin of the moment cbs news projecting that barack obama will be the winner in virginia. this doesn't change the outcome of the race of course but it does add to the president's margin of victory. we've been waiting on virginia all night long. there have been long lines of people waiting to vote in virginia, they kept the polls open long after the 7:00 p.m. eastern time closing. but virginia now at long last cbs news is projecting for president obama which brings president obama over 300.

only needed 270 electoral votes now with this cbs news projection of virginia president obama now 303 electoral votes. mitt romney with 203. anthony i'm sorry to of a interrupted you. but now we'll come back to you, please tell us more about what you learned. >> sure, scott. we much talking about the economic divide we ended up seeing among voters in our exit poll. weep were asking them should we increase income taxes. 47% told us that, yes, we should for people who make $250,000 or more that is what considered to be the wealthy for many people. it's interesting i think we mentioned earlier also that about 55% of the voters we talked to said they thought mitt romney's policies favored the wealthy. here is where you see the real split when you ask voters who they voted for among voters who make less than $50,000. barack obama wins 60-38%. among voters who make more than 50,000 it flips, mitt romney wins 53-450%.

that with the testimony about 60% of the electorate. 41% make 50,000 or less. you see we have split here along economic lines that may have played in to the whole economic issue. >> pelley: thank you very much. cbs news just projected that barack obama will carry the state of v. virginia. and john dickerson our political director here to tell us how that happened. >> remember when we first started talking about virginia, henrico county that sits right on top of richmond. women, the president won 55-44. that is not as well as he did against senator mccain, but he did well enough there in henrico county and did in the area of the blue areas he needed to do well and prince william county. then governor romney in the counties he needed to do very well in augusta is one. he got 70% of the vote, but

that's not great deal more with 2,614 that not great deal more than john mccain got. in the parts of the map where governor romney needed to do very well he didn't do as well as he needed to. barack obama did well enough. >> pelley: i wonder when you look at all of the exit following information that we have, are there any constituencies, any people in the country that the president did not do well with that he had carried in 2008? >> well, it depends on the state you're talking about. he did with white voters did not two as well as he did in 2008. their calculation that was if he would not do as well, president might not do as well with white voters but that with minority voters if they represented the same share of the total electorate as city did last tight which they did in this case that he would get -- do better with the minority voters make up for any loss with white voters.

>> pelley: john, thanks very much. going to look in on the romney and obama campaign headquarters, two different tales tonight. we will do that as soon as cbs news campaign 2012 election night coverage returns in just a moment. >> pelley: welcome back to

cbs news coverage of election night in america. let's go now to the campaign headquarters of the two candidates tonight, we're going first to boston that is the -- the victory rally in chicago there on the left and as you can see a very different scene in

boston tonight where the supporters of mitt romney have gathered. let's go to boston first and check in with jan crawford there. >> scott, we are hearing that the governor, governor romney after not conceding despite seeing these projections that president obama won this race will be coming out to give his concession speech shortly before 1:00 i'm also hearing from sources that he has called the president with his concession with his congratulations. >> pelley: headline of the hour that is news that we did not know, jan, thanks very much that mitt romney has called the president according to jan crawford and conceded the election. we would expect to see mitt romney come out there in boston, make a concession speech to his supporters there. and then not long after that, if tradition holds we would ex spoke see the president. nancy cordes a at the president's victory rally in chicago, have you also heard

that the president has received -- has received a call from mitt romney? >> not yet, scott. i've been in touch with white house officials every couple of minutes asking that question. ip fact one wrote back to see said, no, president just in his suite at the fair mount hotel with family and friends and close staff. but may be that call a few minutes ago that virginia was going to end up in the president's column that made the difference for the romney campaign. in fact here at the victory party, scott, when you made that projection this crowd just went crazy. they see the big screens, you can see them behind me, they know when important projections like that are made. they understand that if the governor was holding out to see what hopped in ohio that projection in virginia basically made ohio more or less irrelevant he still couldn't get to the 370 he needed even if his fate changed in ohio. the president will make about a

ten minute motorcades over here to mccormick place after governor romney has spoken. a very simple event. he's going to come take the stage with his family and declare victory. >> pelley: thank you very much. headline of the moment is the reporting of jan crawford, our jan crawford in boston is given to understand that mitt romney has made the call to president obama conceding this very hard fought election and we are expecting to see mitt romney come out to make his concession speech to his supporters in boston very shortly. we will have more cbs news coverage of this unfolding election night in america in just a moment. people really love sna >> pelleyg

states that we were watching tonight very closely was the state of colorado.

which was once a very reliably republican state. but has become a swing state in recent years, here is the tabulated vote in colorado. cbs news projected some time ago that colorado would go the president's way. and as you see the tabulated vote there 76% of the vote in the president does have a lead there in colorado. as the votes continue to be counted. john is the governor of colorado. democratic governor of colorado thanks for much for joining us tonight. appreciate you being with us. tell me, how did president obama find victory in colorado which until not too long ago was as we say a very reliably republican state? >> a lot of people have moved here over the mast decade or two, also the president was remarkable in connecting with young people, with women, with latinos, african americans obviously, he created a network

all over the state of volunteers that were reaching out and really helped to get the vote out in a remarkable way. >> pelley: now 21% of the voters in colorado are hispanic that's a very different demographic than the state has had in the past. governor, i want to ask you about something else that was on the ballot in colorado this was initiative to make marijuana legal in your state for recreational use. and it has passed tonight. i wonder how you see that affecting the state of colorado? >> you know, it's a little bit -- a big battle -- i looked at governor romney and president obama like one of those early 20th century, 1900 prize fighters where they punch each other until they fell. staple thing with the marijuana. lot of strong arguments on both sides but still against federal law. may be able to decriminalize or make legal as what the voters

would like. clearly the voters spoke. >> pelley: governor, were you in favor of the legalization of marijuana in your state? >> no, i was against it. i heard both sides of the argument and obviously majority said it should be treated more like alcohol and not -- not love onerous burden of legal burden on it. i think it's ultimately a challenge to figure out if federal government has it illegal how do we decide, can't legalize how decriminalize it get as close as we can. it's not immediately apparent. >> pelley: governor with a number of thorny issues on your hand there in the state of colorado. thank you very much for being here. >> the challenge -- >> pelley: cbs news coverage of election night 2012 will continue in just a moment. plus presents the cold truth. .

our jan crawford reporting from boston has told us that mitt boston has told us that mitt romney has made the concession call to the president and we are expecting mitt romney very shortly, this is the scene in boston where we are expecting mitt romney to make that concession speech to his supporters. jan, can you give us some indication of when the governor may be coming out and what he might say? >> any moment, scott, he is back stage now arrived here and back stage getting miced up his aide put piece of paper, notes, i presume his concession speech

on the podium so crowd now sitting here standing here waiting for the governor to come out to make these remarks. scott, i have to tell you remind you when he spoke to reporters earlier this afternoon on his campaign plane flying back here to boston from that last campaign swing in ohio and pennsylvania he was so confident he said he written out victory speech but not yet written concession speech. part of what they were looking at tonight was ohio of course but obviously governor also had to get together those remarks for tonight's consection speech. obviously a very different speech than one just few hours ago that he had planned to be giving. >> pelley: cbs news projected victory of the president probably about an hour ago. but the romney campaign has been waiting to see some of the final vote tallies coming in, particularly as jan was saying the state of ohio which is so very close. but clearly the romney campaign has now decided to concede. and here comes governor romney

now. greeting supporters here comes governor romney now greeting his supporters in boston. let's listen. >> thank you. thank you my friends. thank you so very much. thank you. >> [ applause ] >> thank you. i have just called president obama to congratulate him on his victory. his supporters and his campaign also deserve congratulations. i wish all of them well. particularly the president, the first lady, and their daughters. this is a time of great challenges for america. and they pray that the president will be successful in guiding our nation. >> [ applause ] >> i want to thank paul ryan

for all that he has done for our campaign. and for our country. besides my wife, paul is the best choice they have ever made. >> [ applause ] >> and the trust that his intellect and his hard work and his commitment to principle will continue to contribute to the good of our nation. i also want to thank the love of my life. she would have been a wonderful first lady. she has been that and more to me and our family and to the many people she has touched with her compassion and her care.

i would like to thank my funds for their timeless work on behalf of the campaign and their wives and children. for taking up the slack while their husbands and dads have spent so many weeks away. >> i want to thank matt rose and the dedicated campaign team that he led. they have made an extraordinary effort, not just for me, but also for the country that we love. to the team across the country, the volunteers, the fundraisers, the donors, the surrogates, i don't believe there has ever been in effort in our party that can compare with what you have done over the past years. thank you so very much. >> [ applause ] >> thank you for all of the hours of work and the speeches and the appearances.

also for the prayers that you gave deeply from yourself and performed magnificently. and you inspired us. and you humbled us. you have been the very best we can imagine. the nation as you know is in a critical point. at a time like this, we cannot risk political posturing. our leaders have to reach across the aisle to do the people's work. and we citizens also have to rise to the occasion. we look to our teachers and professors. we count on you not just to teach, but to inspire our children with a passion for learning and discovering. we look to our pastors and priests and rabbis and counselors of all kinds to testify of the enduring principles upon which our society is built. honesty, charity, integrity and family. we look to our parents for the final analysis -- analysis and that depends on the success of our homes. we look to job creators of all kinds. we are counting on you to invest, to hire, to step

forward. and we look to democrats and republicans in the government at all levels to put the people before the politics. i believe in america. i believe in the people of america. >> [ applause ] >> and i ran for office becaus and iran for office because i am concerned about america. this election is over but our principles and door. believe that the principles of which this nation was founded are the only sure guide to a new greatness. like so many of you, paul and i have left everything on the field. we have given everything to

this campaign. [ applause ] i so wish that i have been able to fulfill your hopes to lead the country in a different direction. but the nation chose another leader. and so anne and i join with you to earnestly pray for him and for this great nation. thank you and god bless america. thank you so much. thank you. >> he has campaigned for six years. that was mitt romney saying, america has chosen another leader. take this moment in.

>> [ applause ] >> mitt romney with his sons and their wives. mrs. romney in the red dress. [ applause ]

>> as the families walk off the stage, mitt romney says america has chosen another leader. and in the electoral vote count, that is true. but let us show you the popular vote count as it stands right now. you can see that both mitt romney and president obama are in almost exact numerical ties. president obama has moved ahead in the popular vote a little bit. of course it is not the popular vote that matters. it is the electoral vote. and the president has a commanding lead in the electoral vote. let's have a look where it stands right now. there is only one state outstanding at this point. and that is florida. president obama with 303 electoral votes. 264 mitt romney. as you know, it takes 272 win. so not even carrying florida will get mitt romney nearly to the total that he would have

needed to become the 45th president of the united states. we have a scene in chicago that is very different. that is the mccormick place seen where thousands of supporters of the president have filled the hall and they are waiting for president obama to come out and make his victory speech. which we are expecting shortly. we just received a still photograph from the white house official photographer. this is a picture of the president and the vice president, joe biden, greeting each other at the point that they had realized that they had won the reelection. there you see mrs. obama and joe biden's wife congratulating one another. this is a scene -- it looks like a scene of relief after this very hard-fought campaign. let's go back to mccormick

place and have a look at the president's supporters who have gathered there. certainly many thousands of them. nancy cordis is the correspondent there. nancy, what do we expect from the president? >> we get a little taste of what the president is going to say in an e-mail he sent a short time ago to supporters after he crossed the 270 electoral vote threshold. he said friends, i'm about to speak to the crowd in chicago. but i want to thank you first. i want you to know that this wasn't an accident. you made this happen. you organized yourselves block by block. you took ownership of the campaign. $5.10 at a time. and when it wasn't easy, you pressed forward. it was pretty heartwarming hear a few minutes ago as governor romney was giving his concession speech. the crowd here of course applauded right along with the crowd in boston.

the cheering overpowered everything. they were happy the election process worked as it should. it appeared to come off without a hitch. but very relieved that it came out with the outcome the hoped-for. >> a very gracious concession speech that we just heard in boston from mitt romney. and bob schaffer, as we continue to look on the sheen -- seen here in mccormick place and wait for the presidents arrival, things will have to be very different the next four years, to move this country forward. i think the president would agree with that assessment as well. >> i remain to be convinced that they can be different. i think it is going to be extremely difficult. i remember rahm emanuel told me that, how is the president, if he is reelected, going to break

the gridlock? >> he said, elections have an impact. elections change things. so will the impact of this code -- election caused washington to restart -- have a restart of relations between the white house and the congress? i remain to be convinced. because the popular vote is so close. i don't see the president having any mandate here. he was reelected. but was it because his programs or endorsed? i don't think so. i think the country remains divided, as it was from the beginning. i hope i am wrong about that. i hope they can find a way. we have to do something. right now, i don't see it. >> the president i am told is not only going to thank his supporters. but also talk about what he wants to do for the country in

the next four years. he has said in interviews that ought -- that not only are there challenges ahead, but he talked about immigration, something that was unfulfilled in his first term. i don't know if you will mention that tonight. probably not. but that is something his advisers say is on the plate. and then the for the reenactment of the president healthcare law which was wildly unpopular. and led republicans to take control in 2010 of the house. and now a lot of that gets implement it in 2014. for now, this is a moment for any president of any party, when you are able to get a second term in office, to sort of take that and then talk about what you are going to do in the next four years. >> the crowd there in chicago being warmed up by a film of the president. and we would expect the president to walk out very shortly. certainly a terrific crowd. while we are watching this scene and waiting for the president, let's go to anthony mason who has been tabulating be exit

polls across the country. and listening to what voter seven telling us. >> one of the things that was interesting in the exit poll numbers, it looks like the president supporters were a little more enthusiastic today. 70% of obama supporters tell us they strongly favor their candidate. 20% said they had reservations. eight% said they let -- dislike the other. look at mitt romney's numbers. they were not quite as strong. his supporters, about 60%, said they strongly favor them. 20% said they had reservations. the other thing that is interesting is you look at these dislike numbers, and when you consider all of the negative advertising fired by both campaigns at the other, basically with the supporters told us is they were not motivated by the dislike of the other candidates. >> thank you very much. john dickerson, r cbs news political director, as we watched the presidents rally in chicago, let me bring you in. what did you see in the exit

poll? >> if we are talking here about the president and whether -- what he faces going forward, and binding up the nation, he now has that central tab. half of the voters will be unhappy with the outcome. in terms of whether this is a mandate for the president policies, one number really struck me. one ask, who has the vision for the future? this is something the romney campaign pressed very hard against the president. when people were asked that question, 55% said that governor romney had a plan for the future. retreat -- 43% said obama did. people were looking for a vision. people -- that is part of obama's challenge. that he has a future worth getting behind. >> thank you very much. we are told that the president has not left the hotel yet.

he is staying at a hotel that is a few minutes away from mccormick place. he has not left the hotel yet the will be leaving soon. we're going to take advantage of this moment to step away for just a moment. our cbs news coverage for election night and the presidents victory speech will be coming up in just a few minutes. >> pelley: if you're just

inning us, president obama has won re-election to another term in the whitehouse and he is now enroute from his hotel to a victory rally at mccourtroomic place in chicago and we will cut to misremarks th -- his remarks. mitt romney delivered his concession speech a few minutes ago. bob schieffer you have a statement from the speaker of the house republican john baron

who he is going to -- john boehner who he is going to have to do business with to move the country forth. >> mr. boehner issued this statement. the american people re-elected the president and elected our majority of the house. if there is a mandate, it is a mandate for both parties to find common ground and take steps together to help our economy grow and create jobs. he goes on to congratulate the president. this is where it's going to be. i mean, what is the president going to do to break this grid lock that's been going on in washington. will this election really change things there. >> pelley: nora, speaker boehner seems to be saying congratulations mr. president, but don't forget, we won too. >> yes. i mean a mandate for common ground. that means we've got to meet in the middle. so each side will have to give presumably but boehner earlier this week said he's not willing to give on the issue of taxes which has always been kind of

the main sticking point between these two sides. so we'll see what happens between the two of them. they have a lot of challenges facing this country. it's not just the expiration of the bush tax cuts which will face everybody it's also the fiscal clip, defense cuts but also the future of medicare and social security. >> pelley: we'll show you pan edition of one of the newspapers in ohio tonight. this is the front main of the columbus dispatch obama wins with ohio. it was ohio that put the president over the top in the 270 electoral votes needed to win the whitehouse. and dean reynolds has been spending a lot of time in ohio for us covering that state because we knew it would very likely be the state to tip the balance and sure enough it was. dean. >> scott you know the thing that we noticed here when we got here, it seems like five, six weeks ago is the size of the obama footprint in this state. i mean it just dwarfs gone

romney -- governor romney's efforts. there was 130 field offices and a lot of them have been here for four years. there were countless staffers, paid as well as volunteers versus about 40 offices for the governor. and he had to share those with the republican national committee regularly. i saw those ads that you folks were talking about earlier this evening, and they were devastating going right after governor romney's record at bain capital. i also kept hearing about the bailout from workers in ohio who were very high on that because one out of every eight jobs in ohio is connected to the auto industry bailout. finally, you know, i kept running into the president frankly. he made 22 visits to this state this year. i came here a lot but he stayed

with me stride for stride. >> pelley: dean thanks very much. nancy cordes is in there with the rest of the crowd at mccormick place waiting for the pre's arrival. nancy. >> good evening, scott. the vice president got a bit of a head start on the president so they are both heading this way. and this crowd as you can see jib-bootie lentjubilant cheering their flags. when you were interviewing axelrod and everybody behind them was putting on their hats and heading out the door, they were all heading here to mccormick place and are now on the stage awaiting the president. steve was talking about ohio and how he kept running into the president. we felt like we lived in ohio. the president held 101 campaign

rallies this campaign season. 26 of them, more than a quarter of them were in ohio. he was due a rally in ohio to the whitehouse and come right back the next day. vice president biden made one stop today after voting and it was to ohio. this was their path to the presidency. they said it from the beginning. and it makes a big difference when you got a campaign apparatus that's been around for five years as opposed to governor romney who just never had that kind of time. he clinched the nomination in late spring early summer and he had to start essentially from scratch. there was just no way that he could build the kind of far reaching campaign apparatus really getting into the community the way the president did. >> pelley: the president has won a decisive victory in the electoral college tonight with more than 300 electoral votes to

his credit. more than the 270 necessary. and that is the only count that matters. but let us show you the popular vote. it is very nearly tied. the president is now with a slender lead in the popular vote. and some of the western states that went for the president continue to count their ballots. we may see the president's margin increase but it does go to show just how close this race was. not in the electoral college but in the popular vote, a very close race indeed. nearly tied at this point. these numbers won't be finalized probably for days as the last votes are counted and provisional ballots are counted in the days and even weeks ahead. but certainly a very close and divided electorate tonight. only one state remains undecided tonight, and that is the state of florida.

cbs news cannot make a projection in the state of florida because we just do not have enough information yet. that is the tabulated vote. the votes that's been counted in florida. 92% of the vote in and there you see the president with a slnder lead in florida. but the outcome of florida is academic. it will not change the result that the president has won re-election to another term. yes, nora, come in. >> do we want to put the screen back up. we're only at 100 million votes there if i'm correct. it was 131, the popular national popular vote, there was 131 million in 2008 and will probably exceed that number. so i think there's still a number of votes to come in. >> pelley: quite a number to be counted yet. >> could i just say one more time, no republican has ever won the whitehouse without winning ohio. >> pelley: and so it is tonight as well. and it all came to turn out. it did all come to turn out. it was as the politicians and the political operatives like to

call it, the ground game that mattered. getting people out of their houses and down to the school house to vote. mccormick place is hopping. we were told just a few minutes ago that the president left his hotel. it's a very short drive from the hotel to mccormick place, so we might presume that the president has already arrived. he'll want to hook up with vice president biden before they come out and speak to the crowd but we will be expecting that any moment now. it's about 20, 30 minutes ago that mitt romney stepped out before a somber audience in boston and made a very gracious concession speech to that group and said that he wished the president well and that he prayed that the president would lead america to a birthday. >> you know scott, you have to sort of admire both of these

men. i mean or anyone who would be willing to put themselves through what is required to run for president. in this day and time. it's a hard, hard thing. i was just watching governor romney with his family up there on the stage, how difficult. it's never fun to lose anything whether it's a baseball game or a football game, but for circumstance years he's been running for this office and twice has failed. and that's, you have to kind of admire someone for doing something like that. >> pelley: he was trying to achieve what his father was unable to achieve in 1968. governor george romney actually didn't win the nomination in 68. and so he at least achieved that much. he was able to win the republican nomination but not the whitehouse. john dickerson has been following all of the exit poll data for us tonight and showing us various paths to victory that

each man had earlier this evening. john how does this outcome strike you at this hour. >> well, it's striking scott in the end the number of electoral votes the president was seen very close in the polls but in the end when you look at the electoral votes it's not close but all the individual states fell his way. in the end it was a fria triumpf his organization and being able to have, just know the mechanics of how to campaign. the commi exit polls there's nog to suggest there's -- it's something when he won in 2008 he came out after a campaign that had soared so high and had really lifted people. he gave a very earth bound speech recognizing what he was walking into was a very tough situation and that he needed to show that he was already on the case, that he wasn't going to set expectations too high. he faces a tough situation tonight. he faces half the country or half the voters who are unhappy

with the outcome and this will be his first effort to kind of bind things up. and this is the president who he teaches about race and violence in america has done well at moments where people need to be brought together. that certainly didn't happen during the campaign. now he gets a shot at doing it afresh now with this outcome. >> pelley: the president in 2008 had a mandate and he had the house o house of representad the senate in dramatic hands. he starts his second term which is a very different situation. we essentially spent $billion for all of these races with the house the senate and the presidency and we ended up pretty much where we were before the $6 billion was spent. the house will remain in the hands of the republican majority. the senate will remain in the hands of the democratic majority. and president obama will remain in the whitehouse. >> we're continuing to look at

some of the exit poll data as it comes in in the shape of electorate changes. we see barack obama won the hispanic vote by 71%. mitt romney got 27% of the hispanic vote. that's down from john mccain who was under performing among hispanics. george w. bush got 40% of the hispanic vote. this is a warning sign for the republican party. >> pelley: and there were four million more hispanics registered to vote this election cycle than in 2008. that is a clear theme of the changing american electorate that hispanics have really really grown. >> as when john kerry lost in 2004 and john mccain lost in 2008 and mitt romney lost, all of these presidential campaigns, the autopsy is done about what went wrong and the big part of the autopsy of the romney campaign will be about his failure to support hispanic voters and how the next republican candidate if they

want to win the presidency will have to do better it is also likely that the next congress, a congress that got elected tonight, we'll have more hispanics than ever before. there will be a new historic high on the number of hispanics. >> i believe this will be the first congress where the majority were not black. >> in the democratic? >> yes. >> the majority of the democratic -- it will be women and minorities. it will be a different look for democrats in the house of representatives. >> and a new america that the republican party needs to make a connection to. >> i don't think they can exist unless they find some way to appeal to women and to appeal to hispanics. look what is happening in texas. >> it's not going to be that

way for very much longer. >> and arizona, another state that has so many hispanics that can turn democratic unless the republicans find a way to appeal in that state. just like in the body used to be republican until there was a large group of hispanics. >> we are told that the motorcade of the president has arrived at the mccormick place. we assume that the president is backstage preparing his remarks. >> speech in hand, he may be going over it before he steps out. we expect him any moment. and nasty cordis is that mccormick place tonight. >> we started to see some of the president's senior staffers. we saw the chief of staff. we saw the press secretary. and some of the president's friends dating back to high school who have been with him on

the final leg of the campaign keeping him company and trying to keep it real for him as he goes from rally to rally and trying to do his day job as well. i spotted a good friend of his from high school in hawaii who has been on the trail with him. he is an accountant from north carolina. he has been on and off of air force one. other buddies as well that joined the president for a basketball game today. and that involved scottie pippen, the basketball hall of famer. also the secretary of education. and reggie love. sort of the old gang getting back together. to celebrate. and white house aides told me over the past few days that the president appeared increasingly relaxed because he knew that he was coming to the end of his very last campaign. no matter whether he won or lost, he would never have to go through this again.

and we saw this as well. he had been rushing through his campaign seats. and then over the last couple of days, he slowed down. he would lean on the podium. talking with the voters who had come to hear him. and he really seemed to visibly relaxed. and just try to take it all in. we were in des moines, iowa late last night for his final rally. he spoke very personally about opening up his first campaign office in des moines five years ago when he was running for the iowa caucus. and we talked about how his volunteers had to wear hats and gloves in the campaign office because it had no heat. and he would go door-to-door and people did not even know how to pronounce his name. and eventually, he went on to win the iowa caucuses and that propelled him toward the presidency. and at the end of that speech last night, tears were running down his cheeks. and we could not tell whether

it was because he was emotional and could not believe he had gotten to the end of this grueling run, or whether it was because it was freezing cold outside. it was in the 30s. but regardless, there was a lot of emotion on his face. a lot of emotion on the first lady's face who had come to join him on the final legs. she had been campaigning relentlessly as well. often apart from her husband. she goes to one state and he goes to another. they were reunited and flew to chicago overnight together. there have been several nights over the past few weeks where they have been flying overnight, sleeping on air force one, just to get from one rally to the next. >> it was about five weeks ago after the first debate in denver that people began to ask, how much the president wanted to be reelected. how much he was committed to the race. but after that, if you'll pardon the phrase, near death experience, politically speaking, at that first debate

in denver, the president became reenergized. and certainly proved himself in the campaign. at the moment that he really saw that he could lose, he seemed to want it all the more. the president we understand is that the mccormick place backstage. we are waiting for him to step out here any moment now. we have a photograph from the official photographer at the white house from earlier today. this was a picture of the president at the moment that he learned that he would be reelected. it is a picture of the president at his hotel. he met with joe biden there. and you see michelle obama and joe biden's wife greeting each other as well. and what struck most of us in the newsroom about this picture was that it really doesn't seem to be a scene of jubilation. it seems to be a scene of relief. a heavy sigh, if you will.

at the moment that the president understood he had one four more years at the white house. let's go back to mccormick place as we are with the crowd they are waiting for the president to step out. >> bob. >> i have been in a lot of campaigns and my time. it is always more fun to be with her the winner then with the loser. if there is -- there is nothing quite as sad as being at the campaign headquarters of the guy that lost. it is tough on everybody. >> i think that is why you saw the white house particularly chose that picture. they did not want to look like they were spiking the ball. and even david axelrod, in an interview said, did not want to appear that they were celebrating too early and not to be gracious. because having fun campaigns before, people know what it is like to be on the losing side. there are certainly many people in obama's campaign that have been on the losing side of a campaign. >> it's not just the family.

of course it is the hardest on them. but you have these young volunteers. these people that, it is their first taste of politics. they had just had the adventure of their lives. and then it is all over and they are -- their side lost. it is just a very sad place to be. on the other hand, these kids are having a great time right now. and they should. because they have worked hard. and they are going to celebrate this victory. the president of course, he will go back to work. they will have a nice party. >> byron pitts has been following the house and senate races for us tonight. wiring, i'm reminded that you were here with us in 2008 on election night when the president was first elected. you have been with us at the conventions. i wonder what your reflections are at this moment. >> looking at these images from chicago, i think back to

four years ago, when we saw people crying. and there were images of oprah winfrey and jesse jackson weeping. we look at the audience tonight, and there is a different reaction. a reminder of when the new england patriots won the first super bowl. after they won the first time, the expectation was, that we can win. you are talking about the coalition, this new coalition in the democratic party. i think it says something, not just to the republican party, but perhaps the rest of america. i was talking earlier to the head of the urban league. he made the point of this coalition, is becoming more mature. we talk about this coalition of young voters. of women and minorities, african-americans and hispanics. he made the point that not only should the republican party take notice, but perhaps the rest of america, corporate america, to take notice that america is changing. and perhaps not just the republican party, but also organizations. to look at diversity in a different way. because you see from this audience that they won a tough

race. and they are certainly relieved. but there seems to be an expectation in this crowd that this is the direction america is going in. and there is a level of confidence that you see in chicago that four years ago, was just excitement like, we won. the first time it happened, maybe it is a surprise. the second time, people think, okay, we are onto something. >> byron makes an excellent point. we exit polls show that in fact, the minority vote was 28% of the electoral. it was 26% in 2008. it was just 19% in 2000. so there has been a rapid growth and change in terms of the increased minority as part of the electoral. if you want to win in politics, you have to win part of the minority vote. >> and the campaign has given us a heads-up to tell us that the president will be stepping out on the stage here in less than a minute.

sometimes these things are a little bit flexible in reality. but they have told us that the president -- his appearance before the crowd at mccormick place in chicago is imminent. and we will be hearing his victory speech. the last victory speech he will give as the politician, after the last campaign he will ever conduct is a politician. the president will be inaugurated, according to the constitution, on january 20. >> here is the president and the first lady. >>

♪[ music ] >>

♪ here i am baby, signed sealed differed ♪ i'm yours ♪ here i am baby, signed sealed delivered, i'm yours ♪ [crowd cheering]

four more years. four more years. four more years. four more years. >> thank you. thank you. thank you so much. tonight, more than 200 years after a former colony won the right to determine its own destiny. the task of perfecting our union moves forward. [crowd cheering] it moves forward because of you. it moves forward because you

reaffirmed the spirit that has triumphed over war and depression. the spirit that has lifted this country from the department depf despair to the great heights of hope. the belief that while each of us will pursue our own individual dreams. we are an american family and we rise or fall together as one nation and as one people. [crowd cheering] tonight, in this election, you, the american people reminded us that while our world has been hard, while our journey has been long, we have picked ourselves up. we have fought our way back. and we know in our hearts that for the united states of america, the best is yet to

come. [crowd cheering] i want to thank every american who participated in this election. [crowd cheering] whether you voted for the very first time, or waited in line for a very long time. by the way, we have to fix that. [crowd cheering] flower whether you pounded the pavement or picked up the phone. [crowd cheering] whether you held an obama sign or a romney sign, you made your voice heard. and you made a difference.

i just spoke with governor romney and i congratulated him and paul ryan on a hard fought campaign. [crowd cheering] we may have battled fiercely but it's only because we love this country deeply. and we care so strongly about its future. to their son mitt, the romney has chosen to give back the american public service and that's the legacy that we honor and applaud tonight. [crowd cheering] in the weeks ahead i also look forward to sitting down with governor romney to talk about where we can work together to move this country forward. i want to thank my friend and

partner of the last four years, america's happy warrior, the best vice president anybody could ever hope for, joe biden. [crowd cheering] i wouldn't be the man i am today without the woman who agreed to marry me 20 years ago. [crowd cheering] let me say this publicly, michelle, i have never loved you more. i have never been prouder to watch the rest of america fall in love with you too as our nation's first lady. [crowd cheering]

sasha and malia, before our very eyes, you're growing up to become two strong smart beautiful young women just like your mom. [crowd cheering] and i'm so proud of you guys. but i will say that for now one dog's probably enough. [laughter] to the best campaign team and volunteers in the history of politics. [crowd cheering] the best ever. [crowd cheering] some of you were new this time

around and some of you have been at my side since the very beginning. [crowd cheering] but all of you are family. no matter what you do or where you go from here, you will carry the memory of the history we made together. and you will have the life long appreciate information of a grateful president -- appreciate appreciation of a grateful president. through every valley, you lifted me up the whole way and i will always be grateful for everything that you've done and all the incredible work that you've put in. [crowd cheering] i know that political campaigns can sometimes seem small, even

silly. and that provides plenty of fire for the cynics who tell us that politics is nothing more than a contest of egos. or the domain of special interests. but if you ever get a chance to talk to folks who turned out at rallies and crowded along the rope line in high school gym or saw folks working late at the campaign office in some tiny county far away from home, you'll discover something else. you'll hear of the determination in the voice of a young field organizer who is working his way through college and wants to make sure every child has that same opportunity. [crowd cheering] you'll hear the pride in the voice of a volunteer going door to door because her brother was finally hired when the local auto plant added another shift.

[crowd cheering] you'll hear the deep patriotism in the voice of a military working the phones late at night to make sure that no one who title for thifights for this cos to fight for a job or roof over their heads when they come home. [crowd cheering] let's why we do this. that's what politics can be. that's why elections matter. it's not small, it's big. it's important. the monetarist nation of 300 million can be noisy and messy and complicated. we have our own opinions. each of us has deeply held

beliefs. and when we g through tough times, when we make big decisions of a country, it necessarily stirs passions, stirs up controversy. that won't change after tonight. and it shouldn't. these arguments we have are a mark of our liberty. we can never forget that as we speak, people in distant nations are risking their lives right now just for a chance to argue. about the issues that matter. the chance to cast their ballots like we did today. [crowd cheering] but despite all our differences, most of us share certain hopes for america's future. we want our kids to grow up in a country where they have access

to the best schools and the best teachers. [crowd cheering] a country that lives up to its legacy as the global leader in technology and discovery and innovation, with all the good jobs and new businesses that follow. we want our children to live in america that isn't burdened by debt, that isn't weakened by inequality, that isn't threat upped by the destructive power of a warming climate. [crowd cheering] we want to pass on a country that's safe and respected and admired around the world. a nation that is defended by the strongest military on earth and the best troops this world has ever known. [crowd cheering] but also a country that moves with confidence beyond this time

of war, to shape a piece that is built on the promise of freedom and dignity for every human being. we believe in a generous amount, in a compassionate america, in a tolerant america, open to the dreams of an immigrant daughter who studies in our schools and pledges to our flag. [crowd cheering] to be the boy on the south side of chicago to sees the light beyond the nearest street corner. [crowd cheering] to the child in north carolina who wants to become a doctor, scientist, engineer or an entrepreneur, a diplomate or even a president, that's the future we hope for. that's the vision we share. [crowd cheering] that's where we need to go.

forward. [crowd cheering] that's where we need to go. now we will disagree. sometimes fiercely about how to get there. as it has for more than two centuries, progress will come in fits and starts. it's not always a straight line, it's not always a smooth past. by itself the, anything that we have common hopes and dreams won't end all the grid lock or solve all our problems or substitute for the painstaking work of building consensus. and making the difficult compromises needed to move this country forward. that common bond is where we must begin. our economy is recovering. a decade of war is ending. a long campaign is now over. [crowd cheering]

and whether i earned your vote or not, i have listened to you. i have learned from you. and you've made me a better president. and with your stories and your struggles, i return to the whitehouse more determined and more inspired than ever about the work i need to do and the future we have. [crowd cheering] tonight you voted for action, not politics as usual. you elected us to focus on your jobs, not ours. and in the coming weeks and months, i am looking forward to reaching out and working with leaders of both parties to meet

the challenges we can only solve together. reducing our deficit, performing our tax code, fixing our immigration system, freeing ourselves from foreign oil. we got more work to do. [crowd cheering] but that doesn't mean your work is done. the role of citizen in our democracy does not end with your vote. america's never been about what can be done for us it's about what can be done by us together through the hard and frustrating but necessary work of self government. that's the principle we were founded on. this country has more wealth than any nation. but that's not what makes us rich. we have the most powerful

military in history but that's not what makes us strong. our university, our culture, the an very of the world but that's not what keeps the world coming to our shores. what makes america exceptio excl are the bonds that hold together the motion diverse nation on earth. the belief that our destiny is shared. that this country only works when we accept certain obligations to one another and to future generations, the freedom which so many americans have fought for and died for comes with responsibility as well as rights. and among those are love and charity and beauty and patriotism. that's what makes america great. [crowd cheering]

i am hopeful tonight because i have seen the spirit of work in america. i've seen it in the family business whose owners would rather cut their own pay than lay out their neighbors. the workers would rather cut back their hours than see a friend lose a job. i've seen it in the soldiers who reenlist after losing a limb. and in those fields whose charged up the stairs in the darkness and danger because they knew there was a buddy behind them watching their backs. [crowd cheering] i see it on the shores of new jersey and new york where leaders from every party and level of government these swept aside their differences to help a community rebuild from the wreckage of a terrible storm. [crowd cheering]

and i saw just the other day, in ohio where a father told the story of his eight year old daughter whose long battle with leukemia nearly cost their family everything. had it not been for healthcare reform passing just a few months before the insurance company was about to stop paying. [crowd cheering] i did not talk just to the father but meet this incredible daughter of his. and when he spoke to the crowd listening to that father's story, every parent in that room had tears in their eyes. because we knew that little girl could be our own. and i know that every american

wants her future to be just as bright. that's who we are. that's the country i'm so proud to lead as your president. [crowd cheering] and tonight, despite all the hardship we've been through, despite all the frustrations of washington, i've never been more hopeful about our future. [crowd cheering] i have never been more hopeful about america, and i ask you to sustain that hope. i'm not talking about blind optimism, the kind of hope that just ignores the enormity of the tasks ahead or the roadblocks that stand in our path. i'm not talking about the wishful idealism that allows us to just sit on the sidelines or

shirk from a fight. i have always believed that hope is that stubborn thing inside, despite all the evidence to the contemporary that something bettecontrary thatwe have sometp fighting. america, i believe we can build on the progress we've made and continue to fight for new jobs and new opportunities and new security for the middle class. i believe we can keep the promise 0 of the idea if you're willing to work hard it doesn't matter who you are or where you come from or what you look like or where you live it doesn't matter whether you're black or white or hispanic or asian or native american or young or old or rich or poor, able, disabled, gay or straight, you can make it

here in america if you're willing to try. [crowd cheering] i believe we can see this future together because we are not as divided as our politics suggests. we're not as si cynical as the pundits believe. we are greater than the sum of our individual ambitions and we remain more than a collection of red state and blue states. we are and forever will be the united states of america. and together with your help and god's grace we will continue our journey forward and remind the world just why it is that we live in the greatest nation on worth. thank you, america. god bless you. but bless the unitegod bless th. [crowd cheering]

>> pelley: president barack obama speaking. after re-election to another four years in the whitehouse. president's daughters sasha and malia, first lady and then there's joe biden. the vice president who the president described as america's happy warrior. and dr. jill biden hugging the first lady.